


all this, and love too, will ruin us

by princesskay



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, Drug Abuse, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:46:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21956866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princesskay/pseuds/princesskay
Summary: The year is 1987. It's been four years since Holden left the BSU, and disappeared out of Bill's life. A chance encounter in a hotel bar causes their paths to cross again, but reconciliation is a long and difficult road.
Relationships: Holden Ford/Bill Tench
Comments: 74
Kudos: 183





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas, everyone! 
> 
> This is more of a Christmas gift to myself than anyone else because I've been working on this fic since October. It's taken me a long time to finish this, but I'm very happy with how it turned out so I hope everyone enjoys it! 
> 
> The title is taken from Richard Siken's poem, Scheherazade, which you can read [here.](http://youngerpoets.yupnet.org/2008/04/22/scheherazade-crush-by-richard-siken///) I read this poem for the first time very recently, but I felt like it really conveyed the feeling of this story. To me, it's about nostalgia and how we never have enough time with the people we love.

_**May 1987** _

_**New York City, New York** _

Holden doesn’t sit down when he eats anymore, at least not when he’s alone. The Chinese takeout box in his hand is the perfect solution to this problem, offering the freedom of pacing while he shovels noodles and shrimp into his mouth in between rehearsed lines of the presentation that looms on tomorrow’s horizon. 

It’s almost eight o’clock, the tipping point for a late May sunset that sprawls in pink and gold across the peaks of the New York high-rises, reflecting in the myriad of windows that peer like eyes back and forth at one another. The Hilton reigns supreme over the other hotels and office complexes in this square block of downtown, and Holden has a view from the tenth floor where a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows offers him a breath-taking cityscape. 

As he polishes off the last of the shrimp lo mein, he mutters the closing statements of his speech. Pacing back the bed, he scans the neatly laid out pages of the presentation, searching for anything he’s missed. There isn’t; he had it all memorized before he got on the plane in Boston. 

Holden discards the empty takeout box into the trash can, and gathers up the pages one by one until they’re stacked in order. Paperclipping them together, he puts them back in his briefcase, and flips the lid shut with a heavy sigh. 

He checks his watch again to find only a scarce five minutes have passed. He half-wishes he knew someone in the city, or had the number of anyone who would be attending the presentation tomorrow just so that he could use their company to slake his jittery boredom. Shuffling back to the window, he braces a hand against the glass and peers down at the busy street below packed with yellow taxi cabs and the churning mass of pedestrians. 

In a city of thousands, he’s quite alone, though he has to admit most of his solitude has come by choice. It requires a tenacious person to get past the hurdles he’s set up between himself and the world. Most people can’t get past the unreturned phone calls, the lack of conversation about anything other than his work, and his inability to sit still and relax for even a moment. 

Holden leaves the window, shuttering away those dismal thoughts with the sinking sun, and gets dressed in slacks and a button-down. He takes the elevator ten stories down to ground level where the hotel bar might offer a reprieve to the constant grind of his thoughts. 

Peaceful piano music trickles across the lobby as he makes his way toward the hotel bar where most of the patrons are well-dressed men in suits and ties or women in cocktail dresses. The convention he’ll be speaking at tomorrow isn’t the only one in town, and this hotel is swarming with bureaucrats, politicians, financiers, and other types that Holden actively tries to avoid. 

Making his way along the row of occupied bar stools, Holden finds an open spot and waits for the bartender to acknowledge him before waving his hand. 

“Can I have a martini dry, please?” 

“Coming right up, sir.” The bartender says, already reaching for the gin before Holden has a chance to sit down. 

“Holden?” 

The voice saying his name cuts through the jovial hum of conversation, interrupting the weary stream of his thoughts like a bucket of ice water sloshing down his spine. For a moment, it’s familiar but lost like a faded memory half-stuffed into the back of his mind with the rest of his demons; but the realization comes swift and abrupt, and its as if he’d only just heard it yesterday, saying his name just like that - a bit of disbelief, a bit of annoyance, but the fondness coming through even stronger. 

Holden spins around, his heart tripping over itself as Bill emerges from the strange faces of the crowd like a composite of the past dropping down in the middle of the present, jolting him backwards through the years to a version of himself that he’d tried and tried to forget. 

“Bill.” He says, gripping the smooth edge of the bar to ensure that he’s still clinging onto reality. 

“I can’t fucking believe this.” Bill says, approaching him with a bewildered smile. “Is that really you?” 

“In the flesh.” Holden says, mustering his own smile. 

As Bill draws closer, Holden quickly assesses his appearance. There’s a few more lines around his eyes, maybe a few extra pounds on his waist, but in all, he looks almost the same as Holden remembers, down to the whiskey glass clutched in his hand and the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. 

Holden draws in a steadying breath as Bill’s hand touches his shoulder. 

“What are you doing here?” Bill asks, “I thought you were in Boston now.” 

“I am. I’m here for a conference.” Holden says. 

The bartender slides his martini across the bar, and he retrieves it, grateful for the promise of alcohol. 

“Are you here on a case?” He asks, turning back to Bill. 

“Yeah.” Bill says, “What a coincidence. I don’t believe this; it’s been what - three, four years?” 

“Four in October.” Holden says. He doesn’t add that he counted the days at first, losing track somewhere in the five-hundreds when the residual pain finally subsided. 

“Jesus.” Bill says, “It doesn’t seem that long, does it?” 

“Some days more than others.” 

Bill’s gaze intensifies, and Holden can practically see the thoughts and conclusions turning behind his eyes, trying to see past the placid facade Holden has firmly in place. 

“You look great.” He says finally, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Healthy.” 

“Thanks.” Holden says, “I’ve been trying to take care of myself better. Eating healthier, running every morning, that sort of thing.” 

“Well, it must be paying off, whatever it is.” Bill says. 

“You look good, too.” 

“Please.” Bill says, scoffing into his sip of whiskey. “You don’t have to lie just because we haven’t seen each other in four years.” 

“I’m not lying.” 

Bill grimaces against the taste of whiskey, and draws in a deep breath. “I’ve got a table over there.” He says, nodding to the back corner of the bar where a booth seat is occupied solely by a blond-haired woman in a maroon pantsuit. “You should come have a drink with us, catch up.” 

“Us?” 

“My new partner.” Bill says, “I’ll introduce you.” 

“Okay, sure.” 

“Trust me, I’m doing her more of a favor than you know.” Bill says, leading Holden through the crowd. “She loves your book.” 

“Oh, great.” Holden mutters, just low enough so that it blends into the buzz of conversation around them. 

As they reach the table, Bill slides his arm around Holden’s shoulders, and drags him forward. 

“Cynthia, look what the cat dragged in.” He says. 

The blond woman glances up from the case file she has open on the table, appearing confused for only a second before her curious gaze takes in Holden, trapped under Bill’s arm and clutching his martini. 

“Oh my god.” She says, sliding out of the booth to leap to her feet. 

“Cynthia, meet my old partner, Holden Ford.” Bill says, nudging Holden forward. 

Cynthia quickly wipes both hands on her trousers legs, and extends an eager hand. 

“Oh my God, this is so amazing.” She says, flashing him a bright smile. Her teeth are perfectly white and straight. “I am a huge fan of your book, and Bill has told me so much about you.” 

“Lovely to meet you.” Holden says, returning her enthusiastic handshake. 

“Wow, I have so many questions.” She says, relinquishing her hand and clutching it to her chest. “Do you have somewhere to be? Do you mind?” 

“No, it’s okay.” Holden says, “Bill practically kidnapped me from the bar so …” 

“What?” Bill says, his gaze landing pointedly on Holden. “I don’t see you for four years, I have to jump on the opportunity.” 

Holden clears his throat as a flush crawls up his cheeks. The years seem longer now that they’re standing side by side again, Bill looking at him like that, as if he’d betrayed him. The sentiment isn’t far from the truth.

“Come on.” Bill says, breaking the tension with a slap on Holden’s shoulder. “I’ll put your drink on my tab if you humor my partner. I’ll have brownie points for a year.” 

“Okay.” Holden says, managing to smile in Cynthia’s direction. 

Holden slides into the booth opposite Cynthia, and Bill sits down beside him, offering little opportunity to escape should he have the desire. 

“I can’t believe this is happening.” Cynthia says, echoing the panicked thoughts racing through Holden’s mind. “People still talk about you at the Academy, you know.” 

“Do they?” Holden asks, taking a bolstering sip of his martini. 

“That Richard Speck interview is like … legendary.” Cynthia says, bracing her elbows on the table and leaning forward with a mischievous smile. 

“Is it really?” Holden asks, clearing his throat. “Is the fact that it nearly got the unit shut down part of the story?” 

“No, of course not.” Cynthia says, “I heard that part from Bill.” 

Holden casts Bill a sideways glance as he feels the weight of his gaze resting on his temple. “I’m sure he didn’t paint me in a flattering light the way the recruits do.” 

“Not quite, but close.” 

Holden shifts a dubious glance towards Bill. 

Bill shrugs, his mouth tipping in a sheepish smile. “Hey, it was almost ten years ago. I can chuckle about it now.” 

“Well, I’m glad you can.” Holden says, “It’s hard for me to imagine anyone telling that story without cringing at the ridiculous amounts of hubris.” 

“But that’s what made you Holden Ford, right?” Cynthia says, spreading her hands. “You created profiling. You’re the master.” 

“I don’t know about that.” Holden says, “Bill, here, he’s the master. I learned everything I know about criminal behavior from him - and he’s still working in the field.” 

“But you wrote the book on it.” 

“The book wasn’t about hubris.” Holden says, “It was more of a therapeutic exercise than anything else, if I’m being completely honest.” 

The gleam in Cynthia’s eyes fades a bit as the idea of his disorder writhes just beneath the surface, on the verge of shattering her starry-eyed thrall. He’d never meant for it to be a dirty little secret, but his publisher had warned him against including the true reason for his departure from the BSU. At the time, he'd caved to the pressure, and now his reasons for leaving are the manufactured fables of gossip, anywhere from complete fiction to a skewered, embellished version of the truth. But no one, not even Ted or Wendy, knows that beyond the disorder there had always been something more, something that Holden now feels tugging between he and Bill like a magnet - not gone with time, just muted and purposefully forgotten, a wound closed over with the passage of years, but forever mottled by scar tissue. 

Bill clears his throat as tension wavers beneath Cynthia's sip of her whiskey, and the sharp curiosity in her eyes. 

"I'm gonna get another round from the bar." He says, "Another martini for you, Holden?" 

"Hey, you're buying." Holden allows. 

"The BSU is buying. You should see the per diem numbers we get now." Bill says. 

"Great." Holden says. 

As Bill leaves for the bar, Cynthia reaches across the table to touch his forearm. 

"When I tell you a week doesn't go by when he doesn't mention you, I'm not exaggerating." She says, her voice conspiratorially low. 

Holden casts a quick glance at the bar where Bill is waiting for the next round of drinks. A shaft of pain and guilt pierces his chest, coming harder and faster than he'd imagined with the number of years standing between them. He had finally gotten to the point where it didn't hurt to think about his old life in the BSU, about Kemper, about the victims, but he'd always avoided the thought of Bill, hiding the deepest pain from his therapist and himself. That wound is not quite as healed as the rest, and he can feel it ripping open wider and wider with each second that passes. 

"Yeah," he says, clearing his throat against the growing knot. "We worked together closely for over five years." 

When he looks back at Cynthia, she's gazing at him intensely but he can't tell whether she's just curious or jealous. The idea that Bill might be fucking her the way he did Holden cuts across his mind like a lightning bolt, spearing his own chest with a nauseated, jealous grip. 

"Do you have more questions about profiling?" He asks, "It looks like we'll be here for awhile." 

"Oh, yes, I have loads of questions." She says, her perky, excited tone returning. 

Holden tilts back the last of his martini, and sets the empty glass down with a sigh. "Shoot." He says. 

~

They burn through three more rounds of drinks before Cynthia runs out of questions, or perhaps loses track of them in the buzz of alcohol. The crowd in the hotel bar has thinned out as the hour creeps past ten, and people either retire to their rooms or move beyond the hotel to explore the New York City nightlife. 

“Well, I think I’m gonna call it a night.” She says, checking her watch. “Bill and I have a meeting at the precinct early in the morning.” 

Bill stubs his cigarette out in the ashtray. “I’ll walk you up.” 

As he rises from the booth, he casts Holden a glance, hazy with alcohol. “What about you? What time’s the presentation tomorrow?” 

“It starts at eight.” Holden says, “There’s a lunch after.” 

“I’m good for one more round if you are.” Bill says, “If you don’t mind waiting …” 

Holden nods, too tipsy to recall the silent screech of panic that had gripped him when he first saw Bill earlier this evening. His nerves have turned to a melted puddle of inclination and longing under the duress of two martinis and just as much whiskey. The thought of them sitting in this booth alone doesn’t seem as frightening, but rather an opportunity to repair the damage he’d left behind. 

“Okay.” Bill says, “I’ll make sure Cynthia gets to her room okay, and I’ll be back down.” 

“Are you going to make it back down okay?” Holden asks, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

“I’m perfectly fine.” Bill says. 

He turns to Cynthia, and offers her his arm. Her fingers loop around his elbow, and Holden turns around in the booth to watch them walk slowly out of the bar. 

_ If he was fucking her, he wouldn’t be coming back down.  _ The thought brands itself across the alcohol-soaked slosh of his brain, and he sinks back against the booth with a heavy sigh. The sickening grip of jealousy pits itself across the nauseous sway of too many drinks simmering in his belly. Even drunk, he has the sense to remember that its been four fucking years since he and Bill saw each other, let alone touched one another. He doesn’t have the right to be jealous. 

He sits alone in the bar for what feels like an age, watching the silver needle of his watch wind around and around. Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and finally fifteen minutes later, Bill swaggers back through the door of the bar, his head bent as he lights a cigarette. 

He stops by the bar for another round, and Holden has to forcibly bolster his shoulders at the thought of matching Bill’s whiskey intake without puking his guts out on the shiny, polished floor of the Hilton. A part of him can’t stomach the thought of looking weak in Bill’s eyes while another part knows full well that perhaps that image is the one that’s been ingrained in Bill’s mind for the past four years. Maybe that’s why he has to try so hard now to make himself appear just as seasoned, just as steely, just as fucking careless and reckless as Bill has spent most of his life existing. 

As Bill approaches the booth, Holden sits up straighter. 

Bill slides the whiskey glass across the table to him, and sits down on the bench beside him despite the entire other side of the booth being empty. 

“Sorry that took so long.” He says, dragging his cigarette from his mouth and blowing a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “I think she was tapped out two drinks ago.” 

“Some partner you are.” Holden says, managing a rueful smile. 

“I walked her to her room. She’s safe.” 

Holden takes a sip of the whiskey, wincing at the fiery taste, wincing at the little part inside him that’s begging for Bill’s admiration. 

“I didn’t know the FBI was employing women like that now.” He says, shooting a glance at Bill from the corner of his eye. 

“Like what?” 

“Please.” Holden scoffs. “Like you don’t know.” 

“I’m not sleeping with her, if that’s what you’re implying.”

The remark cuts like a knife through the alcohol daze swimming in Holden’s chest. He swallows hard, his pulse spiking beyond the steady thrum of whiskey. 

“She’s a little young for me, don’t you think?” Bill asks, his eyes narrowed behind the cloud of cigarette smoke pouring from his nostrils. 

Holden shifts uncomfortably against the rigid vinyl of the booth seat. What he really wants to say is “ _ that didn’t stop you from fucking me.”  _ But any concept of them and their history is complicated by the radio silence of the last few years; he can’t say it without sounding like the worst hypocrite. 

“What about you?” Bill asks, the casual ease in his tone snapping the building tension. “You dating anyone?” 

“Not really right now.” Holden says. “It’s been off and on these past couple years. I’ve just been trying to take care of myself, you know?”

“Yeah.” Bill says, tapping his cigarette into the ashtray. 

Holden’s gaze clings to his fingers, absent of a ring. The divorce from Nancy had been final for some time before Holden left, but when he disappeared to Boston, he hadn’t really thought about Bill being alone - or staying that way. He’d always thought Bill would move on and find someone else because he has a lot to give someone, because he doesn’t dwell on the past, because he knows how to pick himself back up despite countless blows, because he knows how to respect and romance other people; all the things Holden doesn’t have, and all the reasons he’d told himself why he couldn’t ever consistently date. 

“And are you?” Bill asks, his gaze migrating from the spill of cigarette smoke to Holden’s flushed cheeks. “Taking care of yourself?” 

“Yes.” 

“You like it in Boston?” 

“Yeah, the city’s great. A lot of history and culture. It’s a great place to live.” Holden says, and he sounds like a fucking tour guide. 

Bill’s mouth tips in a faint smile. “I bet you make a great teacher. A hard one, but a good one.” 

“Thanks. I try to get the best out of my students.” 

“I’m sure they appreciate your philosophizing more than those cops in road school ever did.” Bill says, chuckling into his sip of whiskey. 

“It’s hard to tell.” Holden says, shaking his head. “God. Road school. That feels like ages ago, doesn’t it?” 

“Mm. A lifetime.” 

Holden feels his mouth go dry as he and Bill’s gazes connect, and something tender yet fierce traverses the small space between them. Bill’s eyes are drowsy with alcohol, the faded blue of them clouded with drunkenness and a quiet, creeping need that Holden recalls from long ago. The tension is as electric between them as he can remember, stronger now with the whiskey muting any kind of sensibility. He wonders just how much damage it would cause if he asked Bill up to his room right now, and how severe the consequences would be in the morning when he would have to do the hard thing and end it all over again. Would it hurt more or less than the last time, and would Bill finally, truly hate him for it, in a way that he obviously hasn’t committed to just yet?

Holden’s gaze cuts toward the wood grain in the table, breaking off that thought before it can escape rampant with his impulses. 

“What about you?” He asks, “It seems like the FBI is still treating you well.” 

“Well, I’m all that’s left of the old unit.” Bill says, “They want me to stick around because it gives us a sense of seniority.” 

“I heard Wendy is doing lectures now.” Holden says. 

“She never really wanted to work for the Bureau.” Bill says, “She calls me from time to time. We catch up, pass secrets back and forth across the aisle.” 

“Combining police work with academia was always part of our vision.” 

“There’s still a line in the sand.” Bill says, “Change comes slow, if at all.” 

“We changed things, didn’t we?” 

“Yeah, we did.” 

Holden lifts his whiskey glass, trying to appear casually convivial. “Cheers to that.” 

“Cheers.” Bill mutters, tapping his glass against Holden’s. 

Holden lifts his glass to his mouth, but he doesn’t drink as his gaze lingers on Bill’s throat swallowing down the remnants of his whiskey. 

Bill sets his glass down, and swipes his knuckles across his mouth. 

“So, you said this conference thing is in the morning?” He asks. 

“Yeah.” 

“Are you free in the evening?” 

Holden glances away as his chest flares hot at the question. He clears his throat. “Um, yeah.” 

“We should have dinner.” Bill says, “Have a real conversation when we aren’t inebriated.” 

“Do you have a place in mind?” 

“I’ll make a reservation.” 

Bill grabs one of the drink napkins from the middle of the table, and digs a pen out of his pocket. “What’s the extension for your room? I’ll call you after lunch with the time.”

“Three five four seven.” 

Bill scribbles the numbers on the napkin, and tucks it back into his jacket pocket with his pen. He smirks when he notices Holden’s half-full whiskey glass cradled between his fingers. 

“Are you going to finish that?” 

Holden sucks in a breath to compress the sloshing in his belly. Staring down into the amber liquid, he tries to gather the will to lift the glass, but he can feel Bill’s gaze bearing down the side of his face and neck. 

“Here.” Bill says, reaching over to take the glass. “I’ll make it easy on you.” 

He tips the glass to his mouth, and drains the last half of the whiskey without flinching. 

“Maybe I should walk you to your room.” Holden observes, his brow furrowing as Bill drops the glass back down the table with a sharp exhale. 

“I’ll be fine.” Bill says, rising slowly from the booth. “See you tomorrow.” 

“Okay, it’s a date.” 

The flippant remark slips past his whiskey-numb lips before he can censor the connotation. Bill pauses, his hand braced against the back of the booth. His chest rises with a hitched breath as regards Holden with somber, bloodshot eyes. 

Holden is the first to look away, crumbling beneath the intensity in Bill’s gaze. The years haven’t dulled their edge or their ability to condense him down into a small, quivering mass of wants and needs. If anything, the time apart has sharpened that cutting look to a knife-point, a razor to cleanly slice him open and reveal all the buried, festering desires crawling around inside his belly.

He tries to say something to make it sound kinder and less cavalier, but when he looks back up, Bill is already retreating across the bar. 

~

_**July 1983** _

_**Fredericksburg, Virginia** _

It’s never quite dark in Bill’s bedroom with the streetlamp just outside casting long, yellow shadows past the vertical blinds, and the constant wail of sirens screeching through this part of downtown. He can hear one crying in the distance as the shrill ring of his telephone jolts him out of a dead sleep. 

Swinging a hand out from under the sheets, he gropes for the receiver just to make the piercing sound stop. He props himself up on his elbow and squints against the faint glare of the street light as he presses the phone to ear. 

“Hello?” 

“Hi, is this Special Agent Bill Tench?” 

“Yes, who’s this?” 

“Hi, my name is Jessie. I’m a nurse in the psych ward at Mary Washington Hospital.” The unfamiliar voice on the other end of the line is calm and soothing, but Bill instantly feels the grip of panic clamping his shoulders tight. 

“Okay.” He says, tensely, glancing at the clock. “Why are you calling me at three in the morning?” 

“I have a patient here that asked me to phone you in place of a relative. Holden Ford.” 

Bill grips the telephone tighter as the insinuation strikes deep in his chest. A cold chill of fear and horror runs down his spine, landing hard in his belly where nausea begins a sudden, churning cycle. 

“Is he okay?” 

“He’s not injured.” Jessie says, “But he’s not in a good way mentally. I’m sorry it’s so early, but he asked you to come as soon as you can.” 

“No, it’s okay. I’m on my way right now.” Bill says, tossing the sheets back, and stumbling to his feet. “What room is he in?” 

“1257E. I’ll be here to answer any questions when you arrive.” 

“Thank you. Thanks for calling. I’ll be there in half an hour.” 

Bill hangs up the phone, and stands over the bed for a long minute, realization sinking in past the worry. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he swipes his cigarettes from the nightstand, and goes in search of clean clothes. 

A pair of Holden’s underwear are stuffed under the bottom corner of the bed, and Bill stops when he sees them, his heart plunging to the floor. 

_ Jesus Christ, this can’t be happening again.  _ The thought surges across his mind on repeat, growing louder and sharper with every echo. 

He swipes his trousers from the crumpled heap beside Holden’s discarded underwear, and tugs them on. He finds a shirt hanging over the open drawer of his dresser and gives it a sniff before deeming it worthy of a hospital at three o’clock in the morning. 

He can’t think of anything else he might need or has the sense to bring with him so he leaves the apartment with his keys and his cigarettes clutched in his sweating palm. 

The drive to the hospital is quick and painless, the highway devoid of traffic at the early hour. His chest pounds the whole way, the sickening drumbeat of dread playing like a soundtrack to his racing thoughts. He’s already imagining scenarios, thinking the worst. The nurse had said that Holden isn’t injured, but that doesn’t stop Bill from imagining something terrible having befallen him. 

When he arrives at the hospital, the lobby is graveyard quiet and deserted. The young lady at the front desk gives him loose directions to the psych ward. He mutters the room number to himself as he rides the elevator up, and takes the long, winding halls that are utterly silent save for the beep and hiss of monitors. Most of the patients are resting comfortably, and they would have looked peaceful except for the restraints on their arms and legs. Bill focuses his gaze on the hallway ahead, barely able to stomach the thought of Holden being tied down, much less in such a state that he would require restraints. 

He’d been through this before in Vacaville, but he’d been angry then. He’d blamed Holden for the OPR investigation. He’d been enraged by Holden’s careless pride. They hadn’t been sleeping together then, had barely considered such a thing as intimacy between them. This time, Bill thinks, it might break him to see Holden this way. 

As his wildly scanning gaze finds 1257E at the end of the hall, Bill’s rapid stride cuts to a halt. He stands in the hallway, listening to the heart monitors overlapping one another as his own heartbeat threatens to break out of his chest. 

Bill draws in a steadying breath, bracing himself for whatever is on the other side of that door. Just as he convinces himself to start moving again, a young lady in light blue scrubs exits the room. She smiles when she sees him. 

“Hi, are you Agent Tench?” 

“Yes. Are you the one who called me?” 

“Yes, hi.” She says, extending her hand. “I’m Jessie, Holden’s nurse for the nightshift.” 

“Hi.” He says, shaking her hand. “Can you tell me what happened?” 

“He came in by ambulance about two hours ago.” She says, “He called the squad himself because he was having a panic attack.” 

Bill nods, “He gets them frequently. Usually it doesn’t come to this.” 

Jessie’s gaze grows somber, and she puts a gentle hand on his elbow. “I don’t want to scare you, Bill, but the reason he called 9-1-1 was because he said he was seeing things.” 

Bill swallows hard. A quiet hum fills the back of his mind, his stiff horror breaching into panicked disbelief. 

“Wh-what do mean? Like … like hallucinating?” 

Jessie nods, “That’s what he reported. We got him in here, medicated him, and he finally calmed down, but we’d just gotten him to rest when I called you.” 

“Christ.” Bill whispers, running a hand over his face. “Can I see him?” 

“Yes, but I would advise you to remain as calm as possible.” 

“I’ll do my best.” 

Jessie gives him a reassuring smile, and leads them to the door of Holden’s room. Bill draws in a deep breath as his gaze breaks the doorframe, peeking past to glimpse Holden lying on his back against the sheets, his wrists and ankles latched to the railings. The lights are on low and the room is quiet, but Bill can’t shake the crashing sound of his fear ringing through his brain. 

“Jesus.” He whispers, pressing a hand to his mouth. “Does he have to be tied down like that?” 

“It’s for his own safety.” Jessie says, “In a panicked, delusional state, he could hurt himself or someone else. We’ll reevaluate the need for them in the morning.” 

“Okay.” Bill whispers. 

“You can sit with him. I have some charting to do, but I’ll stay close.” She says. 

“Thank you.” 

She leaves him alone in the doorway, and Bill stands still in a frozen state of shock for what feels like an hour before Holden’s head lolls against the pillow. His face turns towards Bill, and his eyelids flutter open despite the heavy sedation. 

“Bill … Is that you?” 

Bill bolts across the room to his side, horror falling away in favor of his concern and a panicked desire to soothe the raspy fear in Holden’s voice. 

“I’m here.” He says, grasping Holden’s limp fingers. 

“Good, I …” Holden whispers, his voice slow and lilting with the drugs. “I don’t know anyone here. I thought maybe … maybe I imagined the whole thing.” 

Bill presses his eyes shut, feeling the hot sting of tears rush harshly to his eyes. 

“No, it’s okay.” He whispers, trying to sound assuring. “You’re gonna be okay now. They’re taking good care of you here.” 

Holden mutters a sound of relief, and closes his eyes. A thin tear breaks free of his eyelashes and rolls down his temple into his hairline. Bill reaches down to smooth it away with his thumb, his hand lingering as Holden turns his cheek into the caress. 

“Christ, Holden. What the fuck happened?” He whispers, squeezing Holden’s fingers tighter.

Holden’s eyelids flutter open again, and he looks up at Bill with hazy eyes. He’s drugged and listless, but Bill can glimpse the real Holden behind the sheen of drugs and exhaustion. 

“It was him.” He whispers, his voice choking on emotion as fresh tears spring in his eyes. “I imagined I saw him, Bill … It was Ed, like he was standing right there in my apartment.” 

A cold wash of horror ripples down Bill’s spine as the admittance shatters whatever confidence he had previously held in Holden’s mental state. It had been years since the first attack, and Holden had always convinced him he could handle the disorder himself; but this is something different, something bigger, something worse. 

“I took some Valium.” Holden continues, his eyelids fluttering against spilling tears. “It didn’t help. I started panicking, thinking he was actually there so I went into my bedroom and got my gun.” 

Bill glances up to see Holden’s cheeks pale and tear-stained, his mouth grimaced with horror. 

_ Don’t do this to me.  _ Bill thinks, but he can’t ask for that, not here, not when Holden is the one in the hospital bed. 

“I called 9-1-1 then because …” Holden sniffs, and glances away as if ashamed he’s even telling Bill the truth. “I didn’t want to hurt myself, I just wanted him to go away.” 

“Jesus Christ, Holden, why didn’t you call me?” 

“I thought I could handle it.” Holden whispers, his voice dwindling into tears again. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to be here in the middle of the night. I shouldn’t have asked them to call you, I just wanted-”

“No, stop.” Bill says, reaching across the metal rail to grasp Holden’s cheek. 

Holden sniffles as his wet, bloodshot eyes meet Bill’s again, his tears spilling hot against Bill’s palm. 

“Don’t say that.” Bill says, “I came as soon as they called, and I’m not leaving until I know you’re okay.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes. Holden, I’m not leaving you here alone in a fucking psych ward for God’s sakes. You think I would do that to you?” 

“No.” Holden’s voice is small and whimpered, uncertain. 

Bill wonders what he has to do to make Holden realize how much he cares. It’s been over a year since they started seeing each other secretly, a love affair kept under wraps from the prying eyes of the FBI but a passionate one nonetheless. They haven’t said those three important words yet, but Bill feels them writhing underneath his skin every time they touch. He feels them more now standing over the hospital bed, looking at his lover handcuffed down and doped up on benzodiazepines just to keep him sane. 

“Bill?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m scared.” Holden whispers, his gaze focused on the ceiling, his mouth quivering. “I don’t know what’s happening to me anymore.” 

Bill wants to say he has the answers and everything will be okay in the morning, but he knows lying now won’t make things better farther down the road. Instead, he casts a quick glance at the empty hallway before bending down to impart a gentle kiss on Holden’s mouth. 

“I’m here.” He says. 

Holden’s fingers curl so tightly around Bill’s that he feels his bones grind together and the blood supply taper off. It doesn’t hurt any more than the powerful fist of dread wrapped around his heart. 

~

After a long night, Holden sleeps through most of the morning. Bill catches a few hours on the narrow sofa in the corner of the room, but he’s too wound up with worry to think about resting. 

A new nurse comes on at 7am, and Bill watches her take vitals and inject another dose of medication into Holden’s IV. He excuses himself to use the bathroom down the hall, unable to watch them poking and prodding him. The last time he’d been in a hospital like this, his mother had been dying of cancer and she’d never come home on her last visit. The situation is wildly different, but he can’t shake the clinging sense of horror the white walls and the smell of iodine gives him. 

When he returns to Holden’s room, the doctor has arrived. They make quick introductions before Bill plunges ahead into the real question he wants to ask. 

“So, when can he go home?” 

“We’d like to keep him another few days for observation.” The doctor says, “He reported a hallucination and thoughts of suicide, so it’s imperative that we make certain he’s mentally stable before releasing him.” 

“He wasn’t suicidal.” Bill says, “He was just trying to make him go away.” 

“Him?” 

“Ed.” Bill says, “It’s kind of hard to explain. We work for the FBI, in behavioral profiling.” 

“I’m aware of the practice.” The doctor says. 

“When we were researching for the study we published, we interviewed several different killers. Ed Kemper was the first subject, and he … he had an impact on Holden. Holden was visiting him the first time he had a panic attack.” 

“I see. Well, this is an escalation, Agent Tench.” The doctor says, “There’s a world of difference between a panic attack and a hallucination.” 

“I understand that, but he’s been dealing with this condition for years. He knows how to-”

“I’m sorry.” The doctor says, holding up a hand. “But, he hasn’t been dealing with it very well. We took a blood draw, did some tests, and he had so much Valium in his system I’m surprised he was able to pick up the telephone and call for an ambulance himself.” 

Bill stops, his gaze swinging to Holden’s slumbering expression. He can’t begin to argue with the scientific results of a hospital test, but God he wants to. He wants to scream that Holden isn’t a druggie, and how dare this doctor accuse him of such a thing. He wants to rip those restrains off right now, and carry Holden out of this hospital because these people obviously don’t know or care about him the way Bill does. But none of that would help. 

“So, now what?” He asks, “He stays a few days. When can the restraints come off?”

“We’ll see how he is when he wakes up, but he seems to have been stable overnight so I think we’ll be safe to remove them for now.” 

“Good. And when can he go back to work?” 

“Forgive me for being blunt, but it seems to me that your work is the very thing that’s causing these attacks.” The doctor says, “He might consider not going back at all.” 

“Is that what you’re going to tell him?” 

“Someone should. I’m here to treat him, to give him advice that will help him outside of the hospital as well as inside. I have his best interests in mind, Agent Tench; as his friend, I hope you do as well. Losing him as co-worker might be worth it if it means this disorder doesn’t continue to escalate.” 

Bill nods like he understands, but he doesn’t understand any of it. It’s selfish, but he can’t think what would happen if Holden left the BSU. They would still see each other he hopes, but not every day; not the way it has been for the past several years. How would he continue the work that they do if he didn’t have Holden beside him every step of the way? It seems wrong, like a cruel trick the universe is trying to pull on them. 

After the doctor leaves, Bill checks his watch to see that it’s past seven-thirty and if he stays much longer, he’ll be late for work. 

Going to Holden’s bedside, Bill takes Holden’s hand, and gently squeezes his shoulder. 

“Holden.” 

Holden’s eyelids flutter in a drowsy, drugged half-awake state. “Hey.” He mutters. 

“Hey, baby, I have to go. I’m sorry.” 

Holden nods, his brow furrowing softly. “No, it’s okay.” 

“I’ll cover for you at work, okay?” 

“Okay.” Holden mumbles, his eyelids slipping shut again. 

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Bill murmurs, bending to a press a kiss to Holden’s forehead. 

Holden makes a quiet sound of affirmation before drifting back to sleep. 

Bill feels sick leaving him alone in the hospital bed, but the last thing he wants is Ted or anyone else at the BSU finding out about this stint in the psych ward. His presence here is reasonable given Holden doesn’t have family in the area, but it could eventually lead to other questions. It’s better for both of them if he goes to work, and puts on a brave face until this is all over. 

~

Over the next three days, Bill maintains the lie to their co-workers that Holden is battling a severe case of the stomach flu while rushing out of work each afternoon to get to the hospital. His initial panic eases as Holden is allowed out of the restraints and seems more alert and oriented with each passing day. On the third day, he’s almost himself again, sitting up in the bed and having a cognizant conversation with Bill. 

The next day, Bill is in his office having a telephone conversation with the police chief from the new case they’ll be consulting on when he glances up to see Holden walking through the door of the BSU. He appears the same as any other day, his clothes ironed and impeccable, his hair neatly combed, but he’s carrying an empty cardboard box to his desk. 

“I’ll have to call you back.” Bill says, interrupting the police chief mid-sentence. 

He hangs up the telephone without waiting to hear the man’s reply, and jumps up from his desk to go out into the bullpen. 

“Hey, Holden. Are you feeling better?” Gregg asks as Holden sets the box firmly on top of his desk. 

“Much better, thanks.” Holden says. 

Bill’s stride slows as Holden braces his hands on the edges of the box, and draws in a deep breath. 

“Can I have everyone’s attention?” He says, loud enough so that the entire basement can hear him. 

Wendy emerges from her office, a frown curling her brow. Her gaze meets Bill’s across the room, and he can see the questions swimming behind her eyes, the same building confusion he feels gripping down on the back of his neck. 

“I’ve just come from speaking to Ted.” Holden continues, “And I’m going to be taking some personal time … a sabbatical, if you will.” 

Bill takes a shuffling step closer, feeling his heart dropping into his stomach. Questions pile up against the back of his throat, but he can’t say them here with all of their co-workers watching. 

“Is everything okay?” Gregg asks, bewildered as the rest of them at this seemingly abrupt announcement. 

“Yes.” Holden says, “I don’t want anyone to worry. I want you all to continue doing the good work that we’re doing here with or without me.” 

“What does that mean?” Bill asks, unable to keep silent any longer. “How long is this sabbatical?” 

Holden’s gaze lingers on the bottom of the box for a long moment before he begins to gather his personal items from the desk and place them inside. 

“I don’t know, Bill.” He says, quietly. 

The entirety of the BSU watches on in silence while Holden cleans out his desk, and hoists the box into his arms. As he turns to leave, Bill strides ahead of him. 

“Let me get the door.” He says, trying to catch Holden’s gaze before this moment can slip beyond his control. 

Holden keeps his eyes on the floor until the basement doors thuds shut behind them, and they’re standing in the long, empty hallway, quiet, raspy breaths filling in the silence. 

“What is this?” Bill asks, “Is that doctor forcing you to do this?”

“No, it’s my own decision.” Holden says, his wavering gaze rising to meet Bill’s. 

Pain glistens in his eyes, and knots up in the quiver of his brows. He looks so pale beneath the stark blare of the overhead light, his cheeks drained of life and color. Bill wonders where all that fresh-scrubbed sincerity and eagerness to learn and excel went to; when did his love for their work disappear into this quivering fragility? 

“But you’re coming back, right?” Bill whispers, hearing the shudder in his own voice. 

“I don’t know.” Holden says, glancing away as moisture builds at the corners of his eyes. “I just know that I can’t live the rest of my life like this.” 

“This is just a setback.” Bill says, trying to convince himself. “You can recover from this, Holden; I’ve seen you do it before.” 

“Recover?” Holden echoes, his voice choking on the word. “God, Bill, you just don’t even know … I can’t get through one fucking day without the pills. I can barely sleep. When we’re on a consult, I can’t look at the victims or their families without feeling like I’m going to slip into an episode.” 

Bill lets out a strangled breath as his chest seizes. “Christ … I didn’t know it was that bad. Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Holden shakes his head, and purses his lips over a reply. Bill can see the truth lingering beneath the quiver of his jaw, the clench of muscle refusing to let any sign of weakness slip past. 

“We finished the study.” Holden says, finally. “That’s what I wanted. Maybe that’s all I was meant to do.” 

“So, what are you going to do now?” Bill asks, the tremble in his voice echoing down the cavernous hallway. 

“They gave me some information at the hospital on a facility.” Holden says, “I’m checking myself in.” 

“What? Like rehab?” Bill says, disbelief rising up harsher and more judgmental in his voice than he’d intended. “Are you sure that’s necessary?” 

“Yes. And I don’t want you to visit me there, Bill. I don’t want you to see me like that.”

Their gazes hold for a long moment before Holden manages a weak smile. “Don’t worry about me; I’m going to be okay.” 

Bill gazes back at him, helpless to gather a reply. All he can think is,  _ But what about us? Are we going to be okay?  _

“Will you at least tell me where this facility is?” Bill asks, “I just want to know where you are … that you’re safe.” 

“I’ll call you.” Holden says. 

His eyes are glassy with sadness, and he’s not smiling anymore. Bill is too frozen by shock to chase him down as he hefts the cardboard box in his arms, and walks down the hall toward the elevator. 

He wants to run after Holden, and take him in his arms. He wants to hold him close, and say everything he’d always meant to say but had never found the words for. He wants to say their work doesn’t mean the same to him without Holden here, and he’d rather expose their love to the whole world than face the idea of going through the years until retirement without him. He wants to say  _ I love you,  _ but that he’s been too afraid to admit it; that he’s fucking sorry he didn’t come to the realization long ago. 

Instead, he stands paralyzed in the hallway, listening to the hum of a lightbulb shorting out overhead and the hiss and grind of the elevator carrying Holden away from him. He stands there until he’s alone, and the idea that everything is suddenly crumbling around him sets in. 

It takes him a week of panic and worry to realize that Holden isn’t going to call him, isn’t going to tell him where he’s at, wouldn’t give him the opportunity to see him detoxing in a mental facility. He tries everything in his power to get the name and number of the facility, but he’s met with privacy laws every step of the way. He calls Holden’s number every day for weeks, leaving messages until the machine stoically announces the voicemail box is full. He keeps calling, listening to that same infuriating, mechanical voice over and over, reminding him with mounting alarm that Holden isn’t going to return his calls, let alone erase any messages to make room for new ones. After a little over a month, he gives up on calling, thinking that Holden will eventually come to his senses on his own. 

For the next three months, he pushes through work with the gnawing ache of worry in his belly, staring at Holden’s empty chair every day with an expanding sense of dread overflowing into every fiber of his body. 

It’s a normal day in the beginning of October when Ted graces the BSU basement with his presence to formally announce that Holden won’t be coming back. It’s a cruel, cold slap in the face to have Ted to do it, but Bill doesn’t get past panic to anger until he drives over to Holden’s apartment that evening to find the place cleaned out, every trace of his presence erased. He stands on the steps of Essex House with the cool fall breeze blustering against the hot sting his eyes, silently cursing himself for not trying harder to prevent this outcome. When the blind anger passes, he’s left with a knotted sense of guilt in his chest that he hadn’t said all the things he wanted to say when he had the chance, thinking maybe -  _ just maybe _ \- Holden would have stayed if he’d had the fucking courage to admit his feelings. 

His fingers are cold and his chest is aching with repressed emotion splintering against his ribs when he tears himself away from the hollowed out apartment, and trudges back to his car. He climbs inside, and pulls the door shut behind him, sheltering him from the October breeze and anyone nearby who might have seen him slowly breaking down. 

Three months of denial hadn’t prepared him for what it would feel like to go into work every day for the foreseeable future knowing that Holden won’t be there, and it feels worse than ever before despite this possibility always hovering in the background. When he walks into the BSU the next day and sees Holden’s empty desk, it hits him hard like a sledgehammer to the chest. The years stretch out ahead of him, empty and aching, cruelly alone as if Holden had never really been there at all. 


	2. Chapter 2

After the presentation, Holden respectfully met with all the big names in academia that were in attendance before discreetly excusing himself out of the hall. He’d escaped to his room without partaking in the lunch the convention had provided, and settled for room service. It’s pushing five-thirty now, and he’s waiting for Bill’s phone call. 

He takes a shower, and rifles through the clothes he’d brought with him for the weekend. He doesn’t have a lot of choices given his short stay in the city. He vacillates between two different ties, knowing the difficulty in choosing rests in his general anxiety about Bill, but unable to stop himself. It won’t matter which tie he wears. Navy or maroon won’t change Bill’s mind about what happened, but it’s the little bit of control he does have over the dinner. 

He settles on the navy - it’s safe - and returns to the bathroom to brush his teeth and comb his hair. 

As he rinses toothpaste from his mouth, his gaze lands critically on his reflection. The row of bright, yellow light bulbs above the sink illuminates the sallow pallor of his cheeks, and the dark, sleepless circles under his eyes. If he looks closely enough, he can glimpse the stampede of his pulse jumping below his jawline. 

He’d fallen into a drunken sleep immediately upon returning to his room last night, but had jolted awake at five o’clock in the morning, his heart racing. He thought he’d dreamt about Bill, about this dinner going terribly wrong, but he couldn’t remember the details. His head was swimming when he got up for a glass of water, still half-drunk. He’d stumbled back to bed, but sleep was evasive, his thoughts deafening. 

Four years have passed, and yet he can still remember every detail of their last conversation - Bill’s denial about the severity of his condition, the weary pain in his face when Holden said he didn’t know if he was coming back, the defeat in his eyes when Holden promised to call. He can well imagine just how devastating it was for that promise to fall empty, the way Bill had probably stubbornly waited days and weeks on end for a call that was never coming. When had he finally given up hope? When had he put aside the memory of their brief relationship, and plowed ahead into his work? 

Holden’s gaze swings from his reflection in the mirror when the telephone on the nightstand rings. 

He jogs across the room to catch it midway through the second ring, and tries not to pant into the receiver as he answers. “Hello?” 

“Hey, it’s Bill.” Bill says, as if Holden could ever forget the sound of his voice. 

“Hey. Did you get a reservation?” 

“Yeah. Meet me downstairs. We can walk there.” 

“Okay.” 

“Are you ready?” 

“Yes, I’ve been ready.” 

There’s a beat of silence over the phone before Bill clears his throat. “Okay, see you down there.” 

Holden hangs up the phone, and sits on the edge of the bed for a long moment, gathering his courage. There’s a jittery ball of nerves swirling in his belly like butterflies, the beat of anxious wings painting his insides with conflicting urges of running scared again or facing the consequences of his decisions. 

Rising stiffly from the bed, he puts his shoes on, and tucks his room key in his pocket before leaving the room. He shares the elevator down to ground level with a young family in swimming gear, headed for an enjoyable evening by the indoor pool. They giggle and chatter the whole way down, but he can hardly hear them over the dull roar of his own thoughts. 

As he emerges into the lobby, he sees Bill leaning against the wall beside the last elevator, his mouth pursed around a cigarette. He’s dressed in slacks, a jacket, and a pale blue polo. 

“Am I overdressed?” Holden asked, fussing at the knot in his tie as he approaches. 

“No, I’m probably underdressed.” Bill says, leaning away from the wall. “Ready?” 

Holden nods. He follows Bill across the lobby to the front doors where a cluster of incoming guests clog the sidewalk. They shoulder their way past the road-weary patrons and the valet, and cross the street to the next sidewalk before the crosswalk indicator can turn red. 

“What’s Cynthia doing while we’re having dinner?” Holden asks, matching Bill’s stride down the sidewalk. 

“She said she was ‘going out’.” Bill says, casting him a faint smile. “Who knows? That girl can make friends with anyone.” 

“It’s a big city.” Holden says. 

“She can take care of herself.” 

“The Bureau is not like it used to be, is it? I remember when I was teaching right after leaving hostage negotiation, I had maybe one girl in my class.” 

“A lot has changed since you left.” Bill says. 

Holden focuses on the shiny toes of his shoes hitting the pavement in rhythm with Bill’s boots. 

_ You’ve changed.  _ He thinks, but he can’t say that here on the sidewalk.

Maybe he’d expected more anger or resentment, but Bill seems perfectly fine taking him to dinner as if the last four years never happened. Has Bill mellowed so much with age, or is Holden just expecting something he thinks he deserves? A part of him longs for Bill’s temper to flare so he can enjoy the catharsis of some type of penance for what he’s done to them. 

Holden clears his throat, shoving the guilty hum of his thoughts to the back of his mind. 

“So, how long are you in New York for?” 

“Till tomorrow.” Bill says. It sounds like a deadline, one far too short in comparison to all they have to make up for. 

“Same here.” Holden says, “I have a flight early tomorrow morning.” 

Bill’s stride slows as they reach the front of the restaurant, a French-style establishment where all the waiters are in tuxedos and there’s a stringed quartet serenading the patrons in the corner. Bill holds the door for Holden, and he wanders inside, his gaze scanning the white tablecloths, candlelight, and cocktail dresses. He quietly wonders how Bill managed to get a reservation at this place on such short notice. 

Bill’s hand lingers against his elbow as he acknowledges the hostess. 

“Hi, do you have a reservation?” She asks. 

“Yes. For Tench.” 

She scans her clipboard before flashing them a smile. “Right this way, gentlemen.” 

Holden draws in a deep breath as he trails behind Bill and the hostess toward a table in the far back corner. Despite his suit and tie, he feels out of place here, like some kind of fraud trying desperately to be something refined and respectable. He’s the one in academia, but Bill appears far more at ease as he takes a seat at the table. 

Holden sits down across from him, smoothing a sweaty palm down the front of his tie. The hostess leaves them with the menus, and Holden glances at the prices before shooting Bill curious gaze. 

“Are your per diem dollars paying for this, too?” 

“Hardly.” Bill says, leaning back in his chair and regarding Holden with an intense gaze, shadowed by candlelight. “This is on me.” 

“This is really nice, Bill.” Holden says, “But, you should at least let me pick up the tip.” 

“It’s okay, really. This was my idea.” 

“I can’t let you do that. This is way too extravagant, and I-”

“Holden.” Bill says, lifting a hand to cut off Holden’s protest. “Will you let me do this? Please?” 

Holden lowers his chin, buttoning his lips over his teeth. He can feel Bill’s gaze bearing down across his cheeks where a strain of humiliated heat flourishes against his collar. He wants to blurt out “ _ Why are you doing this?”  _ But that would seem ungrateful, when really it’s just the opposite. 

They both busy themselves looking over the menu and pointing out items that look appetizing. The waiter comes by to collect drink orders, and Holden asks for a few more minutes with menu. Despite staring intently at the listed entrees since their arrival, he can’t focus on the thought of eating or deciphering what the foreign words mean. 

“I hear the steak tartare is good.” Bill says as the waiter departs. 

“The what?” 

Bill’s eyes narrow. “The steak tartare. If you’re having trouble making up your mind.” 

“Yeah, thanks.” Holden says, shifting forward in his chair to focus his gaze more intently on the menu. “There’s a lot of choices.” 

Bill slides his cigarettes out of his pocket, and Holden watches from the corner of his eye as his mouth purses around the cigarette while he digs out his lighter. There’s a hint of silver stubble lining the sharp edge of his jaw that glints in the low candlelight, and Holden’s gaze is inevitably drawn lower to where the buttons on his polo are left open. 

“Where did you hear that?” Holden asks. 

“Hear what?” 

“About the steak tartare?” 

Bill takes a drag of his cigarette, and exhales a cloud of smoke as his eyes wander critically over Holden’s face. 

“This just doesn’t seem like your ….” Holden murmurs, scanning the other patrons in suits, the greasy sludge of Wall Street unavoidably glazing their smiles. “... style.” 

“The chief of police.” Bill says, “He comes here often.” 

“You must be pretty friendly with him.” Holden says, “The BSU has come a long way, apparently.” 

“We’ve worked closely on several cases.” Bill says, “I figured this would be more your style since you’re an academic now.” 

Holden glances away as the barb needles into his ribs. It’s the first sign Bill has offered him that he’s bitter or enraged, but it doesn’t feel as good as he expected. In Boston, they have Catholic churches on every corner, and the idea of suffering for your sins is a ubiquitous theme that he’d come to be fascinated by; but this conversation isn’t the self-imposed whip across his back, or a layer of uncooked rice under his bare knees. It’s salt across a wound that’s old yet still fresh, his insides laid open to the harrowing, raw burn. 

The waiter returns with the wine they ordered, and Holden acknowledges that he’s ready to order. He asks for the steak tartare, ignoring Bill’s pointed stare as he says it like he knows what he really wants, like he’s hungry and not just desperate to soothe the panic gripping his chest.

As the waiter leaves, Holden leans back in his chair, and stares at the clean, white edge of the tablecloth. Bill’s gaze bores into him from across the table until he looks up, past the haze of cigarette smoke to see the gray-blue clutch of Bill’s eyes assessing him the way Holden remembers them assessing people like Richard Speck and David Berkowitz. 

“So …” Bill says, his casual tone puncturing the building tension. “How’s Boston treating you?” 

“Good.” Holden says, his voice barely breaking a whisper. “It’s a lot different from Fredericksburg.” 

“Is that a good or a bad thing?” 

“That depends.” Holden says, reaching for his glass of merlot. He takes a sip, hoping the dry taste will mellow the sweat gathering under the cinch of his tie.

“On?” 

“On what you’re looking for.” 

Bill nods, slowly. “I have to admit, I was a little surprised when the book came out.” 

“How so? Wendy was the one who first suggested it way back when.” 

“I don’t know. Maybe because you forgot to interview some of the people most intricately involved.” Bill says, shrugging. 

“Well, you never had a problem giving your opinion to me about things.” Holden says, “I remembered it all pretty well.” 

“We all remember things differently. It’s just how the human brain works.”

“Are you really upset that I didn’t ask you before writing the book?” Holden asks, “I felt my portrayal of you was very … generous.” 

“Generous?” Bill scoffs, smiling acidly around a drag of his cigarette. “You think I deserved worse?” 

“No, of course not. What I mean is … it was true to life.” 

The smile fades from Bill’s mouth. Smoke curls from his lips as his gaze steadily compresses the air from Holden’s lungs, the unspoken connotation lingering heavily in the air between them.  _ If it was true to life, they would have been lovers on those pages and not just co-workers.  _

Holden glances away for a moment, drawing in a deep breath against the tension swelling between them. 

“Did you read the whole book?” He asks, mustering a casual tone. “If you got the end, you would see that I gave you just as much credit for profiling as I give myself.” 

“I don’t care about credit.” Bill says, “I’m there, doing the work. I know my own accomplishments.” 

“Then what is it that really bothers you about the book?” 

“You really have to ask?” Bill says, his brow furrowing. 

The steely tension in that question draws Holden’s neck taut with dread, the ugly truth lapping just beneath the surface. He’d put a version of Bill out into the world without permission or acknowledgement, a stifled copy of their relationship castrated of its potency and passion, a hollow shell of them for the general public to consume like daytime TV’s buddy-cop dramas that feed the growing fascination with serial killers. Bill has every right to be bitter. 

Holden draws in a deep breath, gathering an apology that’s interrupted by the waiter arriving with their food. 

“Is there anything else I can get you gentlemen right now?” The waiter asks. 

Bill’s gaze doesn’t break from Holden. “No, thank you. I think we’re good for right now.” 

“Let me know if you do. Enjoy your meal.” 

As the waiter departs, Holden eagerly grabs his fork. He isn’t starving so much as he is looking for an escape from this suffocating conversation. Regret stirs in his belly next to the empty ache, drowning out the hunger even as the enticing scent of the steak tartare wafts into his nostrils. 

“I think we’ve talked enough about me.” Holden says, taking a bite of steak. “What about you? How’s life back in Quantico?” 

“Good.” Bill says, crushing his cigarette into the ashtray. “There’s been a lot of changes since you left. Good and bad, but mostly good. I feel like we’re finally making a return on all our hard work.” 

“That’s great.” Holden says, “I see the BSU in the paper or the news from time to time. It’s vindicating, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah. It’s hard, being on the ground for so much of it.” Bill says, “We’re getting called in on cases as they’re developing, seeing the carnage first hand. It’s a lot different from investigating cold cases.” 

“You seem to be handling it well enough.”

“I try. You have to find a way to leave work at work, and go home every night thinking about something else.” 

“How do you do that?” 

“A lot of golf.” Bill says, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Brian and I go fishing almost every weekend if the weather’s good.” 

“Oh, how’s Brian doing?” Holden asks, “He’s what … twelve by now?” 

“Thirteen.” Bill says, “Practically a teenager. Time flies.” 

Holden stares into the goopy yellow of the egg yolk glazing across red meat. “It sure does.” 

Bill digs in his pocket for his wallet, and slides a picture out of the sleeve. He passes it across the table to Holden, a smile tilting his mouth. 

“His latest school picture.” Bill says, “I tell that kid to smile every year, but does he listen?” 

Holden gazes down at the school picture, Brian’s wide, brown eyes staring like a deer in the headlights at the camera while his mouth rests in a flat, expressionless line. He’s so much older than the version of him stored in Holden’s memory that Holden may not have recognized him at all if Bill hadn’t handed him the picture. 

“He’s a really good-looking kid, Bill.” Holden says, passing the picture back across the table. 

“Thanks.” 

“How’s he doing … with everything?” 

“Good. He still sees a therapist, and it’s been a long, hard road - but he’s a good kid, you know. He just had a lot of bad things happen to him a long time ago.” 

“Has he talked about it at all?” 

“I don’t know if he remembers it in detail so much as he does in a more subliminal way.” Bill says, “It’s a process.” 

“Is he still living with Nancy?” 

“Yeah. She’s got primary custody, but we try to be flexible.” Bill says, tucking the picture back in his wallet. He draws in a deep breath as he picks his fork back up again. “That’s been a process, too.” 

Holden nods, processing this new version of fatherhood on Bill quietly. Brian’s face sticks in his mind, morphing into this older, updated copy in the school picture. While Quantico stagnated in the back of Holden’s mind, a stable and unshakable part of his life segmenting away into an independent mausoleum of ghosts, that world had continued to evolve and change without him. 

Holden bites his lower lip.  _ He doesn’t really have a place there anymore even if he would want it back.  _

“I’m really glad to hear he’s doing better.” He says, taking a sip of his wine. He peers over the rim of the glass as Bill hunches over his plate, driving his fork through baked layers of ratatouille. “But what about you?” 

Bill takes a bite, and braces his elbows on the table, his gaze cutting past the candle melting down into a nub of wax between them. “What about me?” 

“How are you … outside of work? You said last night that you aren’t seeing anyone.” 

“So did you, if I recall.” 

“Touche.” Holden says, forcing a smile to his mouth to soften the prying questions. 

“Touche yourself.” Bill says, spreading his hands. “Come on, Holden, you show up out of the blue after four years and you suddenly want to know the details of my sex life?” 

Holden’s gaze bolts toward the floor as heat scalds his cheeks. “No, I just …”

“It’s been pretty nonexistent, if you have to know.” Bill says, “Working sixty hours in one week will do that to you when the person you’re sleeping with isn’t on the road with you.” 

Holden’s gaze creeps back up as Bill mutters a sigh. The clink of glassware and the hum of conversation around them grows to a dull roar over the silence stretching out between them. A wave of guilt hits him hard as the patterns and textures of a hundred different hotel rooms plaster the back of his mind, drunken touches in the hours after a victory or clinging embraces after a demoralizing failure cementing into a tapestry of them that he’s tried valiantly to erase. It all rises up like a tide, threatening to swallow him whole. 

“You’re right.” He murmurs. “We shouldn’t talk about that. It’s … personal.” 

“Yeah.” Bill says, giving a choked laugh. “It fucking is.” 

“So, you tell me what we should talk about.” Holden says, “You’re the one who asked me here.” 

“To catch up.” Bill says, a frown knitting his brow. “Like normal people do if they haven’t seen one another in four years.” 

“You don’t have to keep reminding me how long its been.” Holden says, gripping his fork as he stares down into the disintegrating bits of steak amalgamating in egg yolk. 

“It’s hard not to.” Bill says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. His gaze cuts into Holden from across the table, intuitive eyes sinking like a pair of sharp fingers into Holden’s chest. “Did you really think we were never going to see each other again?” 

Holden swallows hard. “I don’t know.” 

“Was that the plan?” Bill asks, lifting his shoulders. “Just walk away from the damage and never look back?” 

“Look, Bill, I take responsibility for what I did.” Holden says, “I take full responsibility for-”

“I hate to be the one to break it to you, but taking responsibility for your actions doesn’t absolve you of the consequences.” Bill interrupts, his voice hardening into anger for the first time since they saw each other in the hotel bar. “It doesn’t mitigate the hurt of what you did.”

“I know.” Holden says, sharply, swallowing back the blunt fist of tears hardening in the back of his throat. “You think I don’t know that? That I haven’t thought about that every day since I left?” 

“I don’t know. Do you?” Bill asks, letting out a weary sigh. “Because I’ve just been imagining you living your life in Boston, pretending that none of it happened.” 

Silence settles for a moment, and Holden can feel the steak tartare sinking like a rock into his belly, this fancy dinner like some kind of parody of civility over a yawning wound that demands something closer to violence. 

“Tell me that’s not true.” Bill says, finally, his voice dipping down into a threadbare whisper. “Convince me.” 

Holden blinks against the sting of tears at the corners of his eyes, shoving down the emotion the way he always does, the way he has been since he walked out of the rehab facility. 

“It’s not.” He says, quietly. “Leaving was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” 

The corners of Bill’s eyes wrinkle as emotion reflects fiercely across his strained expression. His chest quivers with a pained inhale. 

“Then why did you fucking do it?” 

The restaurant has faded into background noise, leaving Holden clutched singly by Bill’s eviscerating glare; he’s so enthralled that the waiter’s voice interrupting the unstemmed conflict bleeding out across the white tablecloth between them nearly jolts his heart straight from his chest. 

“How’s everything for you gentlemen?” 

Bill’s gaze swings from Holden to acknowledge the waiter smiling politely down at them. He clears his throat, banishing emotion from his voice. “Good, thanks.” 

“Are we saving room for dessert?” 

“No, I think we’re good.” Bill says, “I’ll take the check, please.” 

“Of course, sir.” 

As the waiter leaves them, Holden grabs his glass of wine, and tilts the remnants past his lips. The bitter flavor rolls down against the drawn tension in the back of his throat, and simmers in his belly where a faint nausea churns against steak tartare. 

“You were right.” He says, setting down the glass with a sigh. “We shouldn’t talk about personal stuff. Can you tell me about the case you’re working on?” 

“It’s an active investigation.” Bill says, “So not really.” 

“Come on. I’m not going to spill my guts to the local news station.” 

“I don’t know. It’s been known to happen.” 

“That was once, and accidental.” Holden says, “I used to do this stuff, remember?” 

“Of course I remember. Do you really want to talk about it? I thought that’s why you left.” 

“I’m good now.” Holden says, “Maybe I can help you with it, offer a fresh pair of eyes.” 

“It’s been four years. You remember how to do it?” 

“It’ll be like riding a bicycle.” 

Bill grimaces a smile, and leans back in his chair. His gaze fixes on Holden for a long minute, thinking and negotiating. He reaches into his pocket for his cigarettes. 

“Not here.” He says, tapping a cigarette free of the pack. “We could go back to the hotel, have a nightcap and talk it over.” 

Holden draws in a deep breath, tamping down the wild bolt of exhilaration that races through his blood. The wine has mellowed his anxiety, and the longer he sits here across from Bill the easier it is to breathe and think that the memory of the past won’t crush him. Maybe Bill is mad, but the casual invitation suggests that he wants to bridge the gap between them. 

“Okay.” Holden says, “That sounds good. What do you have to drink?”

“Whiskey.” Bill says, “You up for that?” 

Holden nods. “Yeah.” 

“Good.” Bill says, pressing the cigarette to his mouth. 

Holden watches the stroke of his thumb as he flicks the lighter open. Smoke billows as the tip ignites, and Bill inhales hard. He can remember the heat of that breath on his skin, the lingering taste of tobacco melding into a tongue-and-teeth kiss. 

Holden glances away before Bill can glimpse the thoughts wandering across his brain. Guilt rises up to quash the selfish thought of Bill kissing him again after all this time, as if he deserves it or has earned it back in some way. 

The waiter drops off the check, and Bill barely glances at it before depositing several bills onto the table. 

Holden swallows hard watching the cash leave Bill’s wallet. That’s the price of him, of getting them in the same room again, of forcing them to talk civilly when they really just want to tear each other apart in every violent and tender way possible. 

Holden follows Bill through the maze of crowded tables to the front door. They make the short walk back to the hotel in silence. Bill leads the way, and Holden is on his heels, trying to keep up as his heart thuds in his chest and his blood coagulates into a hot mire of conflicting desires. Somewhere in the parts of his mind that he’s trained to ignore his loneliness or longing, his logic is screaming at him to put a stop to this night before it unwinds into something he can’t take back; but Bill’s fingers are on the deadbolt he’s placed over his heart, rattling the compartmentalized cages, awaking demons and desires that he put to bed years ago. Worse yet, he doesn’t want to stop it even as it’s acutely painful. 

Holden slips past the front door of the hotel just behind Bill, and they cross the lobby back to the elevators. Bill jabs the UP button, and Holden stares at the little red sensor flashing while they wait. 

Bill glances over at him. “Are you sure about this?” 

Holden hesitates just long enough for him to scowl. 

“It’s pretty disturbing.” Bill says, “I don’t want to be responsible for a ….” 

“A relapse?” 

“Something like that.” 

Holden wants to say he’s already relapsed. _ Into Bill. _ He grinds his teeth, clenching back the slippery gush of honesty churning up in his belly. 

“I’ll be fine.” He says. 

The elevator doors slide open, and a tide of hotel patrons file past them. They board the elevator with a group of businessmen in suits and ties, prattling on about stock numbers and quarterly earnings. Holden hears it like a dull, shapeless hum in the back of his mind as he and Bill linger towards the back of the elevator, their shoulders barely brushing one another in the cramped space. 

At their floor, Bill steps out ahead of him, and nods his head toward the left. 

“This way.” 

Holden follows him down the quiet hallway, his breath rasping louder in the back of his throat now that the conversation the elevator offered is lacking. The hallway seems to stretch on forever, room numbers blurring into an endless list of possibilities.

Bill stops at a room near the end of the corridor, and slides the key into the lock. He holds the door open, and nods for Holden to go in ahead of him. 

The room has one king bed with mussed sheets. Everything else in the room appears untouched except for the suitcase lying open in the corner. Bill’s clothes are spilling out of the suitcase, his underwear and socks crumpled on top. 

“Make yourself comfortable.” Bill says, waving at the room as he bends down to open the minifridge. 

Holden stiffly sits down on the edge of the bed, his hands curled into fists in his lap. 

This moment runs parallel to a hundred others. Shared hotel rooms, late nights after a case, early mornings when Bill’s hands were pinning him to the sheets before they could even think about work. Every little box Holden had stuffed those memories into and locked away bursts open now, recollection pouring unstemmed from deep inside his brain like a chattering video projector flashing images across the walls of his chest. 

Bill retrieves a bottle of whiskey from the minifridge, and uses the provided coffee mugs to pour them each a drink. 

He hands one to Holden, and shrugs out of his jacket. Holden’s gaze clings onto the way Bill’s bicep bunches and rolls against the edge of his shirtsleeve as he raises the cup to his mouth. 

Holden takes a drink of his own whiskey, drowning the inappropriate thoughts in the harsh burn traveling down his throat and into his chest. He suppresses a cough against his knuckles when the hot rush of alcohol hits hard, sending a flush blazing up his throat. 

Bill retrieves his briefcase from the desk, and flips it open. He pulls out a thick case file emblazoned with the FBI insignia. 

“Three girls.” He says, his voice shattering the frenetic tenor of Holden’s thoughts. “Five if you count the two cold cases from 1979.” 

Holden blinks, reorienting himself to the conversation they’re meant to be having, the one about the case. 

“Cold cases?” He asks. 

Bill carries the file to the bed, and sits down on the mattress next to Holden. He hands the file off, and leans forward to brace his elbows on his knees. 

“We’re pretty sure it’s the same guy, based on MO.” Bill says, “He killed two girls in the summer of 1979 before disappearing again. The murders were three months apart. They thought they had a serial on their hands, but he never showed up for the third.” 

Holden opens the file across his knees, and feels the air leave his lungs. The crime scene photos are stacked on top of the police reports, greeting him with the image of pale, bruised skin and spilt blood. The girl is tied to a bed, naked. She’s blindfolded. There’s blood everywhere.

Holden closes his eyes, steadying himself as a wave of dizzying horror hits him. It’s easy enough to say  _ rape  _ and  _ murder  _ inside of a classroom when those words are safely detached from reality, but looking at the crime scene photos of the last, gruesome day in someone’s young life hits like a sledgehammer cracking his ribs open. 

“He ties them up, rapes them, and stabs them.” Bill says, his voice soft and husky around the brutal details. “It would look like a crime of passion except for one thing.” 

Holden opens his eyes, and glimpses the grimace in Bill’s jaw before he says it. 

“He cuts their tongues out.” 

Holden feels his pulse quicken as he pushes aside the photos with sweaty hands to glimpse the autopsy report. It’s there in black and white:  _ Tongue severed. Missing. _

“What do you think he does with them?” Holden asks, “Keeps them as trophies?” 

“Probably.” 

“That’s highly compulsive.” Holden says, “It’s hard to believe he took an almost ten year break.” 

“We’re working under the assumption that he was living elsewhere, or incarcerated for another crime during that time period.” Bill says, “We have three girls in the last six months. He wouldn’t have stopped on his own.” 

“They’re all similar.” Holden says, glancing over the photos. “All the same age, despite the dormant period. He’s getting older, but they remain the same.” 

Bill nods. “Yeah.” 

“Why the tongues? They’re not just trophies. Maybe he wants to keep them quiet, make sure they can never talk again?” 

“Mm.” 

“I remember when I interviewed Brudos.” Holden says, “He said it wasn’t about being seen, it was about wanting them to be quiet. I think this is the same. What were the scenes like?” 

“Organized.” Bill says, “The ropes he used to tie them were generic. You could buy them anywhere. There’s a lot of blood, but never any fingerprints, so he must be wearing gloves. He doesn’t leave semen even though there’s signs of rape. He’s controlled enough to use protection.” 

“He’s got a lot of experience.” Holden says, “He’s been doing it for years, thinking about it even longer. This isn’t the type of guy who lives with his mom, or can’t hold a job. He’s organized, thoughtful, prepared. He has a career, maybe even a family. He knows what’s at stake if he messes up.” 

“I would tend to agree.” 

“That shoots down your incarcerated theory.” 

“He’s a family man. Maybe his wife or kids made him stop for awhile.” Bill says, “Something must have triggered him to kill again.” 

“Sometimes you can only hold back your urges for so long.” Holden murmurs. “The universe has a way with fucking with you, testing your limits. The best of intentions get ruined by coincidence and happenstance. The next thing you know, you’re back to your old ways.” 

Silence stretches out as Holden falls silent. He gazes at Bill’s hands from the corner of his eye, the way his fingers are curled around the coffee mug full of whiskey while the other holds onto his cigarette like a lifeline. 

Bill clears his throat. “All the girls are from out of town or just recently moved here. We think that’s why he chose them.” 

“It makes sense.” Holden says, “He’s from here, but they’re not. Maybe he uses a ruse to lure them in. They’re new to the city, they need someone to guide them. He presents as kind and helpful right up until they let him in the door.” 

“It’s all carefully orchestrated.” Bill says, “That’s a lot of planning.” 

“When you’ve been thinking about it for so long, it doesn't feel like work. It feels like a release.” 

Bill takes a sip of his whiskey, and Holden watches his throat bob as he swallows. They’re sitting so close on the mattress that their shoulders brush when Bill straightens. He takes a drag of his cigarette, and blows the smoke toward the ceiling. 

“He must be a narcissist.” Bill mutters, “To disappear for so long, and then come back to it as if he never quit. There’s no hesitation in these new scenes.” 

“He never stopped thinking about it.” Holden says, “Or missing it.” 

Bill’s gaze slides over to meet Holden’s, frustration flickering across his brow before going to his eyes. Pretense strips back, and Holden shudders beneath the intensity of that look, honesty pouring out like blood from a fresh stab wound. 

“Then why did he stop?” Bill whispers, his voice hitching quietly with emotion. “Why didn’t he come back if he loved it so fucking much?” 

“Maybe he was scared.” 

“Scared of what?” 

“Of how strong it was. Of being seen for what he truly was. Of losing himself in it. Of-”

Bill kisses him hard, suddenly, his mouth crushing across Holden’s with a ferocity that jolts the breath from Holden’s lungs. The case file spills from Holden’s lap and across his knees, crime scene photos and police reports scattering to the floor at their feet. He clutches onto the mug of whiskey as some of his sloshes across his knuckles, and braces the other hand against Bill’s chest. 

Bill’s mouth tastes like dinner and whiskey and cigarettes, and the exact slant of his lips is just as Holden recalls. The kiss is bracing and brutal, almost like a sucker punch, and his mouth falls open against it to utter a strangled moan, a willing victim to the assault, for whatever Bill wants to do to him. He’s leaning into it, his limbs weak and trembling, his breath evacuating his lungs in raspy wheezes by the time Bill pulls back. 

Their mouths break apart with a stuttered gasp, and Bill leans his forehead against Holden’s, breathing heavily. 

“Fuck.” He whispers, a tortured groan swelling into the clipped curse. 

“Bill-” Holden whispers, clutching at the collar of his polo. 

“Don’t.” Bill says, his breath punctuating in hot bursts across Holden’s mouth. “Don’t fucking say anything, Holden. Christ, you’re so fucking …” 

He rises to his feet abruptly, and sets his mug of whiskey on the dresser. He takes a drag of his cigarette before stamping it out in the ashtray, and turning around to pin Holden with a glare. 

“You think you can just show up after four fucking years and do this to me?” 

Holden clutches the handle of the mug until his knuckles blanche. His breathes erupts in stammered bursts, a strand of panic running roughshod across his frayed nerves. He shakes his head. 

“No.” 

“What the hell do you want from me?” Bill asks, the anger in his voice dwindling to a fractured whisper. “You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” 

Holden swallows hard, shaking his head. “No, Bill, I …” 

“At the very least, you  _ wanted  _ it to happen.” Bill says, jabbing a finger at him. His mouth curls in contempt. “God, you have no fucking idea, do you? No idea what you did to me.” 

Holden tears his gaze away, feeling the hot surge of tears building uncontrollably against his eyelids. “Yes. And I’m sorry, Bill. I’m sorry, I-”

“I don’t want an apology.” Bill says, scoffing in disbelief. “Not after all this time.” 

“Then what do you want?” 

There’s a beat of silence before Bill rubs his eyes, and utters a deep sigh. “Fuck. I don’t know.” 

Holden presses his eyes shut, forcing a tear to break free of his eyelashes and wander in a thin, hot trail down his cheek. 

“I understand if you hate me.” He says, focusing his blurry gaze on the bottom of the whiskey sloshing in the coffee mug. “And maybe it’s selfish, but I don’t want you to.” 

He sniffs against the threat of a sob building in the back of his throat as he slowly lifts his gaze to Bill. 

Bill stands still, his chest rising sharply with labored, angry breaths. His hands are curled loosely at his sides, tremors twitching through his fingers. The rage in his eyes has faded just a bit, just enough to give Holden hope. 

“Please, Bill.” He whispers, “Don’t hate me after all of this.” 

Bill’s eyelids slip shut, and he turns away, massaging his fingertips into his forehead. He shakes his head, and lets out a broken laugh. “That’s the fucking problem, Holden. I don’t hate you.” 

Holden’s gaze lingers on the taut stretch of Bill’s broad shoulders, the way they rise and fall in unsteady, helpless breaths. The fractured pieces of the cavalier facade he’d been holding up since he first spotted Holden in the hotel bar are coming apart. The memory of them is like a tender bruise warping his ribs, and all Holden wants to do is reach out and soothe that tortured spot that’s taken a hundred beatings since the day he left. It’s not his place because he created that wound in the first place, but Bill doesn’t hate him - and that’s like some kind of permission that Holden has been starving himself of for the past four years. 

Rising slowly from the bed, Holden sets his own mug on the dresser, and edges closer to Bill. His trembling fingers brush Bill’s back, and Bill stiffens beneath the light caress. 

“Holden …” He begins, a plea turning his name to a muted whimper. 

Holden’s fingers drag along Bill’s side as he comes around to face him, his gaze clinging to the fleeting glimpses of Bill’s downturned eyes. He inches closer until their chests brush with the shudder of strangled breaths, and his mouth is nearly touching Bill’s cheek. 

“I’m sorry.” Holden whispers, “I’m so fucking sorry for everything. I don’t know what else I can say to tell you how much I regret it, and-”

Bill reaches up to clutch Holden’s cheeks with both hands. He silences the rambling plea with a thumb smearing hard across Holden’s lips.

“Stop.” Bill says, his gaze reaching up from the carpet to press into Holden’s tear-glazed eyes. “Just fucking stop.” 

“Bill-” 

“Don’t do this to me.” Bill says, but it sounds like something else; like a prayer for just the opposite, for this kind of slow, dissolving relapse that's collapsing between them. 

Holden’s breath catches in the back of his throat as Bill’s thumb grazes firmly across his mouth, and stops at the corner where Holden’s lips are twitching against a dozen possible replies. 

“I just put myself back together; now don’t fucking do this to me again.” Bill says, this time pushing anger into his voice. 

Holden flinches as Bill’s grip tightens, shaking him.

Their gazes clash, and Holden thinks that if Bill let go and hit him now he would stand still. He would take it because it’s what he deserves, because he’s earned it, because if that’s all Bill’s hands have left for him he’ll willingly accept it. 

But, the hardened sheen of anger in Bill’s eyes fades, disintegrating down into something closer to defeat. He drags Holden in by the jaw, and kisses him again, his protest turning to a muted groan in the back of his throat. 

Holden moans, clinging to the front of Bill’s shirt as Bill’s mouth strokes hard and hungry, pushing his lips open, forcing his tongue past Holden’s teeth. Desperate, panicked breaths surge from Holden’s chest and past his nostrils as Bill’s mouth smothers him in this wet, feral embrace that tastes like desperation and broken promises and hearts unmending as quickly as they’d been tethered. 

A groan jolts from the back of Holden’s throat as Bill pushes him up against the dresser and the smooth, wooden edge bites into his lower back. Bill’s teeth scorch across his lower lip in the same moment, and Holden gasps as the burst of pain pokes holes in the need surging up through his chest. 

Their mouths break apart, and Bill takes a staggered step back. 

Holden reaches back to grip the edge of the dresser, bracing his wobbling knees. His heart is pounding and his cock is twitching half-hard against his trousers, barely getting the message that this moment could turn sour in seconds.

“I can’t do this.” Bill says, pressing a hand to his forehead. “We shouldn’t do this.” 

“We shouldn’t.” Holden echoes. He slowly lifts his gaze as Bill’s hands drop limply to his sides, and defeat peeks past the anger in his eyes. “But I want to. I want you, Bill; as much as I did four years ago. Stronger maybe.” 

Bill’s brow furrows. “You can’t be serious.” 

Holden glances away, and he knows what accusations are coming; so he bows his head beneath it as Bill charges back to him a few quick strides. 

“You don’t get to do this, Holden.” Bill says, his breath blasting hot across his cheeks. “You don’t get to disappear without any warning, without a phone call or a letter, or anything, and then show back up saying you want me. You don’t have the fucking right.” 

“I know I don’t.” Holden whispers, “I know, Bill. I know. I-”

Bill’s hand clamps around the back of his neck, and Holden bites back a gasp as their chests to collide. 

“You don’t get to…” Bill mutters, but the angry retort melds into another kiss. 

Holden opens his mouth to it this time, eagerly encouraging the bruising push of Bill’s mouth claiming his. A whimper crowds against the back of his throat as Bill’s tongue slides across his lower lip, tasting him for mere seconds before the snare of his teeth catch on trembling rim of Holden’s upper lip. 

Holden pushes away from the dresser, and staggers into Bill’s chest. Tilting his head back, he pushes his lower lip against the sharp edge of Bill’s teeth coming down. The little bit of pain doesn’t quell the need charging through his chest or the satisfaction sparking in his belly. He pushes his own tongue into the frenzy, and Bill latches onto it. Moaning, Holden drags his tongue free of the wet suction and pushes up against the roof of Bill’s mouth, tasting whiskey and smoke. 

Bill’s fingers card through the hair at his nape until they find a handful long enough to hold onto. Pulling Holden’s head back, he asserts the stroke of his lips over Holden’s. 

Holden feels the burn of stubble rubbing his mouth raw, his lower lip aching beneath the duress of Bill’s biting hunger; but he doesn’t want it to stop, doesn’t want to breathe again until Bill has touched him in every way he’s tried not to think of since he left. 

Holden gasps as Bill’s fingers tug at his belt. The buckle comes loose, and Bill yanks the zipper down. The slacks slip from his hips, and his cock bolts against the loose fabric of his briefs, swelling and lurching with need. Bill grasps him through the barrier of his underwear, hard and possessive, and Holden cries out as the kiss breaks into a sloppy, panting jostle of mouths sliding against one another. 

Bill’s hand strokes down against the cotton of his briefs, rubbing the fabric into his aching skin, wringing choked whimpers from his throat. Holden reaches up to tug his tie loose, and works the buttons of his shirt open with trembling fingers. Bill pauses touching him long enough to assist the jacket and shirt coming off in one hasty yank. 

Holden pushes his mouth back against Bill’s before they can both stop and think about what they’re doing. He kicks the trousers from his ankles as he pushes them back towards the bed. They stumble through the discarded pile of crime scene photos, and collapse to the sheets. 

Holden catches a glimpse of Bill’s needy gaze just before he straddles his lap and continues the desperate pace of their kissing. It’s a look he remembers well, though now anger ripples just beneath the surface, unquelled by the mutual desires prodding them forward. He pushes back his hesitation as he smothers Bill with his mouth and gasping breaths, and thrusts his hips down against Bill’s. 

Bill pushes up on his elbows to assert his mouth hard against Holden’s. His hands slide down Holden’s bare back, feeling out the trembling curve of his spine until they reach the swell of his ass. His fingers sink into the ample flesh, drawing Holden’s hips taut against his. The competing hard bulges of his cocks collide, tearing a groan from the back of Holden’s throat. 

Breaking the kiss, Holden leans back to pull at Bill’s polo. Bill lets go of Holden’s backside just long enough to lift his arms, and Holden strips the shirt over his head. 

As the shirt clears his head, Bill grabs onto him again, hands clamping down on Holden’s backside and the curve of his spine. His mouth lunges against Holden’s throat, sending a wave of tingles down Holden’s spine and into his belly.

He clings to Bill’s shoulders as the raw, biting kiss makes its way down his throat and collarbones, and against the pounding swell of his chest. Bill’s teeth scrape at his nipple, and he gasps in pleasure, hips revolting against the ironclad grip Bill has on his backside. 

“Bill … fuck.” He gasps, “Please.” 

The breath rushes from his lungs as Bill flips them over, spilling Holden back against the bed sheets while he rises between his thighs. He catches Holden’s flailing wrists, and pins them above his head while his hips bear down, crushing Holden’s squirming backside into the mattress. 

Holden gasps in a breath as their frantic motions pause. He can feel the thudding pulse in his wrists underneath Bill’s powerful grip, his fingers beginning to tingle as the blood supply tapers off. 

Bill stares down at him, his jaw clenched hard and his nostrils flared against runaway need. Despite his protests, they’re in the thick of it now, skin-on-skin, hard, pulsing need lying against one another in unsatisfied distress. Holden can feel the pulse of Bill’s cock running through his body, matching the speed of his own building arousal and the fevered rush of his pulse pounding out the seconds of this ill-advised encounter. 

Bill bends down to plant a hard kiss on his mouth, stamping hunger and hot breath into the brief gesture. He reaches down to tug Holden’s briefs back from his cock as his mouth lifts, allowing Holden to whimper in unrestrained need. 

“Oh God …” Holden moans, breathlessly as Bill’s fingers graze his twitching cock. “Bill-”

“Holden.” 

Holden cracks his eyelids open to see Bill glaring down his him. Holden’s cock is in his hand, but he still looks half-angry, as if he’s on the verge of breaking Holden rather than making him come. 

“What?” Holden whispers, choking on a groan as Bill strokes him. 

“Shut your mouth.” Bill says, “Don’t make a fucking sound.” 

Holden swallows hard, his face flushing hot. “Okay. Are you going to …?”

“Yes. Now shut up.” 

Holden presses his lips shut, momentarily closing his eyes against the wave of conflicted need and panic swarming his belly. His eyes jolt open again when Bill leans back to strip him of his briefs. The fabric falls away, and Bill guides his limp thighs open. 

Holden’s fingers curl around handfuls of the sheets as Bill bends down, spilling hot breath across his cock, and stirring up the lazily flexing flesh into a fevered, twitching tempo; but he lets Holden squirm as he tilts his head to the side, trailing the warm whisper of his breath along Holden’s inner thigh. 

Holden buttons his lips of his teeth, fighting back the urge to rasp a panicked plea. His back arches against a wild bolt of arousal as Bill’s mouth brushes against his thigh, barely a kiss. His lips drag across the sensitive skin, igniting a wave of tingles up through Holden’s belly where his cock goes unbearably taut with the fresh rush of blood and need. 

Trying to steady his breathing, Holden glances down to see Bill’s mouth traveling up the inside of his thigh, leaving a row of brief, light kisses in its wake. Each one stamps into skin like a branding iron, the first mark left on him after so long. When he reaches Holden’s knee, he goes back down again, and the kisses come harder, open-mouthed, smearing saliva into the soft skin. 

Holden digs his toes into the bedspread, bracing himself as Bill’s mouth comes down, closing the gap between him and Holden’s writhing cock. A scream builds in his chest, but he clamps his jaw shut, holding back the desperation tearing at his insides. 

Bill must know he’s bursting with need; he can sense it in the trembling arch of Holden’s spine and the stiff quiver of his muscles fighting the urge to thrust up against the tender brush of his mouth. 

Holden’s eyes squeeze shut as Bill’s breath diffuses hot across the juncture of thigh and groin. His mouth presses there, hard and lingering, before his lips pull back from his teeth. Breath rushes in a long, strangled gasp from Holden’s chest as his teeth sink in. 

The bite is gradual and controlled, barely painful, but the sensation blazes across Holden’s senses like fire. His mouth stretches open in a panicked breaths for a few uncontrollable seconds before he remembers Bill’s order, and clamps his jaw shut. Slanting a gaze downward, Holden swallows back a whimper as Bill’s mouth releases him just long enough to find a new patch of tender flesh to mark with his teeth. This one is harder, teeth sinking in just before Bill’s lips close around the bitten flesh and suck down. His mouth hangs on for what feels like long, torturous minutes before drawing back and allowing Holden’s skin to scrape free of his teeth. 

Stammered breaths lunge against the back of Holden’s throat, but he manages to tamp down the whimpers climbing his chest. His thigh aches and he thinks of begging, but it isn’t over. Bill bites him again, closer to his groin where the skin is thin and tender, unaccustomed to such brutal sensation. 

Holden clings to the sheets, wondering when his skin will break and Bill’s mouth will come away bloody, wondering if that’s what he wants, wondering if this is better than any kind of Old Testament whip. His cock throbs endlessly against his belly, matching the wild beat of his pulse. He can feel the ache sinking into his skin where Bill bit him, each one needling across the inside of his thigh like a string of constellations. 

His panicked gasps ease as Bill’s teeth slide away from his skin, and his head lifts from between Holden’s thighs to shoot him a strident gaze. A predatory, possessive gleam glazes over the anger and pain in his eyes, and Holden can almost forget that Bill should hate him right now; all he can focus on his bitten thigh pulsing with a low, humming pain and his cock jolting just as hard against his belly. 

Holden inhales sharply as Bill’s breath wanders against his hip bone, so close to his cock that Holden feels the residual whisper of heat against his throbbing erection. He lets his head drop back against the sheets, and presses his eyes shut, shoving down the pleas cramming his chest. 

Bill’s palm slides across his other thigh, the one he hasn’t bruised. The tender, untouched skin quivers beneath the calloused push of his palm, and Holden lodges his toes into the mattress, arching his hips toward the caress. 

Bill’s fingers graze him, down the center of the throbbing shaft. 

Holden’s eyes slam shut, and he almost groans aloud before stopping himself with his teeth across his lower lip. He breathes through the seconds, focusing on his lungs filling shakily with air before collapsing again beneath the power of Bill’s fingers hardly grazing his tortured cock. 

It seems to go on forever, Bill’s fingertips dusting across taut skin and bulging veins, stirring the need to an unbearable, aching boil. Faint tingles swirl through Holden’s belly, teasing him with the idea of climax even as Bill holds it out of his reach with these light, inadequate touches. His back arches sharply with every thrill of pleasure that goes through him, sinking defeatedly against the mattress again when it abates into a low hum of steady, thrumming arousal. 

When Bill’s fingers finally slide around the root and drag Holden’s cock away from his belly, Holden nearly cries in pleasure. He arches up from the sheets, sitting halfway upright before Bill’s palm plants in the middle of his chest and pushes him back against the sheets. 

Holden collapses to the mattress, head spinning with exhilaration and need as Bill’s mouth takes him in the same second. The wet heat explodes across his senses, drawing everything taut. Holden writhes as waves of arousal roll over him. He bites frantically into his lower lip to curb the sound of pleasure barrelling up his chest and against his tongue.

Bill’s mouth takes him in, slowly at first, letting saliva build against the back of his tongue and roll down the shaft. The light, slick pressure goes up and down, lathering Holden with saliva before committing to suction. 

Holden’s nostrils flare as he sucks in a desperate breath. Every inch of him wants to cry out with the intensity of the arousal gripping his cock, but Bill told him not to make a sound; and the last thing he wants is his effusive bedroom sounds scaring off the promise of release at Bill’s hands. If Bill left him in the sheets hard and delirious with half-realized pleasure now, he might not be able to live with it. 

The wet, hot pressure of Bill’s mouth increases, riding in steady strokes up and down Holden’s throbbing cock. He isn’t holding back any longer, discarding the gradual, torturous foreplay for this relentless pleasure that quickly takes Holden’s primed, quaking need toward the brink. 

The slick sound of his mouth taking the length of hard flesh fills the air alongside Holden’s desperate breaths surging through his nostrils. Blood pounds through Holden’s ears, a dull roar growing to a scream in the back of his mind. His whole body is taut and stiff with arousal, all of it happening so fast that he’s dizzy with need that he hasn’t felt in so long. His fingernails are scraping bloody across the ground as he’s dragged away into the bright, pulsing arousal, trying to slow down this moment even as it flashes past him. His touch-starved body reacts to every caress, half-hard from the moment Bill’s mouth first collided with his own. Any control he’d once had over his needs melts away into nothing, and he all he can focus on is the pleasure cresting behind the clench of his eyelids and the moans crowding wildly against the back of his throat. 

Holden disentangles his hand from the sheets and clamps it over his mouth as Bill’s tongue curls over the head of his leaking cock, sending thrills of pleasure so deep into his body that he can feel the reverberation in his bones. A strangled breath surges against the muffle of his palm, and he bites down into the thin flesh stretched between his thumb and forefinger until the pain lessens the urge to scream with pleasure.

The steady, powerful stroke of Bill’s mouth doesn’t ease for a second, quickly pushing Holden towards the edge. One hand braces around the base of Holden’s cock while the other grasps his hip, pinning the needy rock of his hips into the mattress. 

Holden shoots a hazy glance downward to see Bill’s mouth sliding up and down his cock. He lets his head drop back against the sheets as the sight of it tips him closer to the edge, and a strangled moan tears free of his chest, past the clench of his jaw and into the muzzle of his palm. 

But Bill doesn’t stop, either because he doesn’t hear the whimpered sound or because he’s beyond caring. He sucks down faster and harder until Holden feels the pleasure rise up from deep inside him, exploding free like a dormant volcano finally finding it’s spark. 

Holden gasps into his palm as the orgasm shatters free inside of him, bursting through every nerve-ending and fiber, taking his helpless, trembling body and twisting it into a spasming vessel of long-repressed pleasure. Wave after wave of bliss hits him, rolling through his chest and belly like a tidal wave slamming into the shore. He feels his hips revolting against Bill’s grip, and relishes the bruising force of Bill’s hands pinning him down while the pleasure explodes behind his eyelids. His hand clamps desperately over his mouth, muffling the sounds of pleasure and gasping frenzied breaths through his nostrils. 

As the orgasm slowly seeps away into a melted, powerless hum that echoes in radiant, tender bursts through Holden’s body, he relaxes against the sheets and allows his hand to slip away from his mouth. A pleasured whimper spills past his unbound lips, tainting the growing silence with the sound of his satisfaction. 

Bill climbs out from between his legs, and grabs a handful of tissues from the box on the nightstand. He spits into the tissues, and carefully wipes the corners of his mouth.

Silence settles on the hotel room as Holden’s breathing eases, gradually returning to normal. 

Bill discards the tissues in the wastebasket, and sits down on the edge of the mattress with a heavy sigh. He glances over his shoulder at Holden, and Holden doesn’t know whether to expect anger or something else. 

“Do you want me to ..?” Holden whispers, reaching a hand across the sheets to touch Bill’s lower back. 

Bill presses his eyes shut. There’s a moment of terse silence before he nods. 

Holden gathers his weak limbs from the sheets, and crawls to the edge of the bed beside Bill. Leaning his shoulder into Bill’s, he trails his hand up Bill’s thigh to his groin where his cock is trapped in a swollen lump beneath his pants. Holden touches him gently, gauging Bill’s reaction to Holden’s hands being on him after so long. 

Bill draws in a shuddering breath and reaches down to unfasten his pants. He tugs them down his thighs, and the loose fabric slips over his knees and pools around his ankles. Holden can see his cock writhing beneath his boxers. 

Bill grabs him by the wrist, and yanks Holden’s hand over his the swell of his erection. He sighs out a heavy, raspy breath as he turns his forehead against Holden’s temple. He leans hard into Holden’s shoulder, pressing every trembling ripple from his body into Holden’s. 

Holden slips his arm around Bill’s shoulders as he tugs the elastic waistband of Bill’s boxers back from his cock. Bill helps him get them below his knees before gripping a handful of the sheets to steady himself. His breath rushes hot against Holden’s cheek as Holden’s fingertips graze across bare, pulsing skin. 

“Fuck-” Bill curses softly, shifting closer to Holden. 

Holden stops touching him long enough to spit into his palm. When his wet hand slides down the shaft, Bill utters a quiet groan that seems to take up every inch of silence smothering the hotel walls. 

Holden pumps his hand up and down, lathering the saliva down the length of him. He’s used to doing this to himself, feeling the familiar shape of his own cock rubbing against his palm; but it’s coming back with every stroke, the memory of how Bill’s body feels under his touch and the sound of his moan when he’s close to coming. Memories flood him with the pulse of Bill’s cock against his fingers, and he can remember the first time and every other time; and it feels like a first time again, both of them flinching away from what this means while being propelled forward by a need they can’t explain. 

“God … Holden.” Bill groans, his mouth pushing scraped breaths against Holden’s ear. “Yes …” 

Holden slides off the edge of the bed, and Bill leans into empty air for a moment before bracing his hand in the sheets. Holden catches a glimpse of his slack-jawed expression of pleasure just before he ducks his head to take Bill’s cock in his mouth. 

Bill’s fingers sink into the hair at his crown, knuckles rolling taut against his scalp. He drags Holden’s head forward as Holden sucks down, taking Bill’s cock all the way to the back of his tongue. 

“Oh God-” Bill whispers, his voice shaking.

His body quivers as Holden sets the pace fast and sloppy, his mouth riding up and down Bill’s cock in wet strokes. 

“Jesus, Holden, that’s …” Bill’s voice trails off before he can finish the praise. 

Holden finishes him with a few more fast, slick strokes, and his voice turns to a strangled groan that stretches on over the uncontrollable shudder of his hips thrusting his dripping cock into Holden’s mouth. 

Holden moans at the sharp burst of release across his tongue. He swallows some of it while the rest spills in excess past his saliva-slick lips and down his chin. He clings to Bill’s thighs until the spasms cease, and Bill’s fingers retreat from his hair. 

Holden leans back, and reaches for the tissues. Bill watches him, breathing heavily, as Holden grabs a handful of tissues and wipes the saliva and cum from his mouth and chin. 

After Holden discards the tissues, they sit in silence for several long minutes. Holden focuses on the light tan carpet fibers, trying to think of something to say that doesn’t pour vinegar over the fresh wound they’ve just created. He closes his eyes, thinking of his apartment in Boston, his empty bed, his tiny kitchen table built for just one person, his perfectly constructed life slowly catching fire. 

Bill is the first to move. He draws in a deep breath as he rises from the edge of the bed, and retrieves the whiskey from the minifridge. He tops off both of their mugs, and carries them back to the bed. 

Extending the cup to Holden, he says, “We shouldn’t let this go to waste.” 

Holden forces his eyes up from the carpet, and takes the mug. He frowns as Bill’s gaze appears defeated rather than angry. 

“You want me to stay?” He asks, quietly. 

“Do you want to stay?” 

Holden glances away as panic chills the lingering, contented warmth in his chest. 

His hesitation screams across the silence, and Bill utters a frustrated sigh. 

“Stay. Leave. I don’t care.” He says, “I know you’ll be on that plane to Boston in the morning.” 

Holden bites his lower lip as tears are quick to come like blood to a deep papercut. 

“Won’t you?” Bill presses, anger sparking anew in his voice. 

“Bill …” Holden begins, drawing in a hitched breath. 

“Then just fucking go already.” Bill says, waving a finger at the door. “You don’t have to try to explain yourself to me. Just get dressed and go, and we can pretend it didn’t happen. Isn’t that what you did last time?” 

“Yeah, Bill.” Holden says, his own frustration rushing in to meld caustic steel into the reply. He picks himself up off the floor, and sets his mug on the nightstand so hard that some of the whiskey spills across the rim. “If that how you want to see it, fine.” 

“How I want to see it? It’s what happened. I was there.” Bill says, “You’re fucking unbelievable.” 

“You know what?” Holden says, grabbing his clothes from the bed. “Fuck you, Bill.” 

“Fuck yourself, Holden.” 

Holden’s hands are shaking as he scrambles into his clothes. The room blurs as hot tears rush to his eyes. Everything inside him wants to turn around, and tell Bill the truth - that he doesn’t hate him, that he isn’t quite this angry, that he doesn’t want it to end like this again. But Bill has a way of seeing things the way he wants to see them, and maybe their history isn’t old enough to be learned from yet.

As Holden marches toward the door, Bill’s voice stops him. 

“Holden.” 

Holden pauses with his hand on the door knob, his breath shuddering as a tear slips down his cheek. He doesn’t want to turn around and let Bill see that he’s this weak, that he’s running away again, crying and scared. 

“I fucking loved you, you know that?” Bill says, his voice breaking despite the anger roiling underneath. 

Holden curls his fingers around the doorknob.  _ I loved you, too. I still do.  _ But, he doesn’t say it. He doesn’t deserve to. And maybe Bill doesn’t deserve the affliction of his love. He deserves something better. 

Bill releases a weary sigh of disbelief when Holden’s reticence cuts new, jagged wounds across the silence. 

“If you’re going to leave, then just leave.” He says, finally. 

Holden pulls the door open, and flees into the hallway. He doesn’t slow down until he reaches the elevator, and jabs wildly at the button. When the doors slide open, the elevator is mercifully empty. He steps inside, and presses the button for his floor. The sway of the elevator rocks like the sick pit of regret opening up in his belly, carrying him further and further away from Bill. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hate me too much! There really is happy ending coming lol In the meantime, feel free to come yell at me about it (or mindhunter in general) on tumblr! I'm [prinxcesskayy](https://prinxcesskayy.tumblr.com//)!


	3. Chapter 3

The bite bruises on Holden’s thigh don’t fade for a week. They shift from deep purple, to faded brown, to sickly yellow before disappearing, each stage hurting less than the one before. 

The afternoon after he got off the plane in Boston, he went home and laid on the couch with the bottle of whiskey he picked up the gas station. While the Yankees slaughtered the Indians in the eighth inning, he pressed his fingers into the bite marks until the pain brought tears to his eyes. 

The next morning, he puked his guts out in the toilet, and flushed half the bottle of whiskey down the drain with the scarce dinner he’d scraped together in his drunken delirium. Looking at himself in the mirror, he thought the whiskey wasn’t much different from the Valium, and he had to put a stop to it immediately. 

For the first week, he does well enough burying his head in work, and focusing on grading papers in the evenings. The semester is coming to a close, and soon enough he’ll be searching for something to occupy him in his free time. He shoves that thought back, knowing this wound he’s given himself will still be healing by the time class lets out for the last time. 

It’s when the bruises fade entirely from the crux of his thigh that the needling regret poking up between his fourth and fifth rib intensifies to an unbearable ache. Bill’s mark is gone from his body, taking with it the possibility of absolution, if not reconciliation. Those bite bruises meant Bill still wants him, and now that they’re gone, his certainty of that fact wobbles as if on quicksand. 

The following Tuesday evening, Holden is lying in bed, wrestling with his thoughts when he can’t take it any longer. Fear had held him back from reaching out for most of the last four years, but now that the curtain has been ripped back on Bill’s feelings, his rage and lack thereof, Holden isn’t cowering beneath the uncertainty of what calling might incite. 

He shuffles down the dark hallway to the kitchen, and picks up the phone. He has Bill’s number memorized. He’d kept it in the back of his mind for the last four years, promising himself that one day he would call and explain, try to apologize. He never had, and now he’s made it all much, much worse. 

Cradling the telephone against his ear, Holden dials the number. Silently, he prays that Bill hasn’t moved, and he’s not waking some random stranger up at 1:30 in the morning. The phone rings half a dozen times, and Holden waits for the answering machine to pick up.

“Hello?” 

Holden’s belly seizes as Bill’s voice, raspy with sleep, interrupts the shrill ringing. 

“Bill.” He says, clutching the phone to his ear. “Please, don’t hang up.” 

Bill’s heavy sigh rustles across the line. “Holden. I hope you appreciate the fact that it’s one-thirty in the morning, and you’re not catching me at my most gracious.” 

“I do.” Holden says, turning to lean against the wall as Bill’s frustrated tone does little to quell the anxiety crawling under his skin. “I’m sorry.” 

There’s a beat of silence before Bill says, “Okay, spill it. What do you want?” 

Holden presses his eyes shut. “To apologize. I know you said you didn’t want an apology, but you deserve one.” 

“For what?” Bill asks, impatiently. He isn’t going to make this easy. He’s going to make Holden say it, every detail of every trespass. 

“For all of it.” Holden whispers, staring through the darkness at the drab, floral pattern in the linoleum. “For leaving. For never calling. For never reaching out.” 

“Anything else?” 

“For New York.” Holden says, lowering his head as tears rise up to grip the back of his throat. “I feel terrible … the way we left things. It wasn’t what I meant to happen. I didn’t mean for it to -” 

“I’m sorry, too.” 

Holden pauses, surprised to hear Bill apologize so freely. 

“I thought I was done being angry with you, you know.” Bill says, scoffing quietly into the phone. “I thought I’d worked through it, put it behind me, moved on.” 

“Did you mean it?” Holden whispers, “When you said you don’t hate me? Do you still feel that way?” 

Bill laughs quietly, a pained little sound that’s almost a whimper. “You should know by now, Holden … I can’t hate you. It’s just fucking impossible.” 

Holden purses his lips over the wave of tears that roll against the back of his tongue, gripping so hard that he almost can’t breathe. It feels like relief and a curse in the same moment. If Bill hated him, maybe he could let go. Maybe he could move on with his life and never look back. 

“I hope you’re happy.” Bill says, finally. “Hearing that. I hope it makes you happy.” 

“It doesn’t.” Holden says, “I mean, in a lot of ways it does, but … I know it pisses you off. And, I don’t want you to be angry with me anymore. I want to take it all back. All of it. Me leaving, the past four years, everything. I really … really fucked up.” 

Silence settles across the line for a moment, and Holden just listens to Bill breathing quietly, steadily into the receiver. He leans against the counter, and stares up through the window where the moon is a sliver, a dusty, white fingernail pressed against the black palette of the sky. Miles away, maybe Bill is looking up too. 

“Why did you do it?” Bill asks, the whispered question breaking the silence. 

Holden lowers his head, squeezing his eyes shut over the crescent image of the moon burning into the back of his eyelids. “You were there. In the hospital.” 

“Yeah.” 

“You saw me.” Holden says, his voice trembling. “I was …” 

“Weak?” Bill finishes for him. “Is that it? You didn’t want me to think of you that way?” 

“I needed to get better.” Holden says, “And I couldn’t do that with you …” 

“With me doing what? Being there for you? Helping you? Christ, Holden, do you have to make everything so goddamn hard? I didn’t judge you for it. I wanted to help you.” 

“I know. God, I know that now.” Holden says, letting his fist drop to the counter. “I was just … scared. Scared and fucking stupid.” 

Bill utters a sigh. “You could have called like you said you would. Or at least written. Something.” 

“I thought about it a hundred times, if that makes you feel any better.” 

“It doesn’t.” 

“Yeah, me either.” 

Silence stretches across the line for a moment, and Holden presses his fingertips to his tear ducts. 

“Now what?” Bill asks. 

“I don’t know. I just wanted to get that off my chest, give you the respect of being honest.” 

“Well, thanks for that.” Bill says, “Why couldn’t you have done that three or four years ago?”

“I don’t know, Bill. I can’t go back and change things, as much as I wish I could.” 

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess I’m just asking … is it going to be another four years before I see you again?” 

Holden clutches the telephone to his ear as he slides down to the floor, and tilts his head back against the wall. 

“This is my life now.” He says, “Here in Boston. I love my job.” 

“I’m not asking you to uproot your life.” Bill says, “Just call from time to time … or come visit.” 

“I’m calling right now.” 

“That’s a good start, but …” Bill’s voice trails off, and he draws in a breath. “I sound like an idiot, right?” 

“What, no?” 

“You fucking destroyed me, and I’m begging you to do it again.” 

Holden shakes his head, and clenches his jaw against the emotion that grips his chest. “That’s not what I want … to hurt you.” 

“I know, but you’re doing it right now. Again.” 

“Do you want me to hang up?” Holden asks, “Maybe it would be easier if we called this closure and moved the fuck on with our lives.” 

“Maybe.” Bill says, uttering a coarse laugh. 

Holden hangs onto the phone even as the silence stretches out. They’ve exhausted their apologies, and aired the fermented truth of the last four years. There isn’t much left to say. There’s only the future ahead, looming in all it’s dark and mysterious magnitude. 

“I should get some sleep.” Bill says. 

“Me, too.” 

“Okay.” 

“Okay.” 

Again, silence. Then Bill sighs, softly. “Goodbye, Holden.” 

“Goodbye, Bill.” He’s speaking to the dial tone. 

Holden drops the phone, letting the receiver swing freely from the cord attached to the wall-mounted cradle. Drawing his knees to his chest, he folds his arms over his knees, and buries his head in the crook of his elbow. The tears are slow to come, as if they’re wrenching themselves free from the steel boxes he’d shoved them down into. First, it’s just heavy, gasping breaths, empty and dry; but when the first tear falls down his cheek, the rest come in a flood, filling the silence of the kitchen with broken sobs. 

Holden drags himself to bed once he can breathe properly again, and falls into an exhausted sleep. By morning, the hopeful sliver of the moon is gone, and the telephone cord has stretched so far that the receiver is lying discarded on the linoleum. 

~

The thick stack of final essays sitting on Holden’s desk looms before him like a monumental task that he doesn’t have the motivation to complete. He’s been staring at the first essay with a red pen clutched in his hand for the last ten minutes, reading the opening lines of the student’s introduction over and over again. 

He can’t focus on theory or psychology with the memory of New York burnt across the back of his mind, the details of he and Bill’s phone conversation settling in beside it. It hadn’t felt like closure no matter how much they both wanted it to. 

Holden turns his gaze to the window of his office where the sunshine backlights the row of trees along the university grounds with a golden glow. When he closes his eyes, the image of Bill’s teeth around his thigh springs to vivid life. 

Holden’s heart leaps in his chest when the telephone on his desk interrupts the distracted stream of his thoughts with a piercing ring. He grabs the receiver, shoving off the memory of Bill’s dusky blue eyes staring up at him from between his pale, bitten thighs. 

“Hello?” 

“Hello. Professor Ford?” 

The voice is deeply familiar, though they haven’t spoken in many years. Holden feels his shoulders go taut with dread. 

“Yes.” 

“It’s Ted. Ted Gunn.” 

Holden closes his eyes, mustering a cordial tone. “Ted, hi. How are you?” 

“Good.” Ted says, “And yourself?” 

“Doing well.” 

“So I heard.” 

Holden’s eyes pop open. He realizes he’s pressing his pen into the paper, bleeding red ink into a student’s theory that may or may not require correcting. 

“Agent Astor had a lot to tell me when she and Bill returned from New York.” Ted says. 

“Who?” 

“Cynthia.” Ted says, “Bill’s new partner. She says the two of you had a very interesting conversation in a hotel bar.” 

“Oh, yes. Cynthia.” There’s a beat of silence across the line, and Holden draws in a deep breath. “What can I do for you, Ted?” 

“I see. Right down to business.” Ted says, “I always liked that about you, Holden.” 

“Thanks.” Holden says, a frown pushing between his eyebrows. 

Nausea grips the pit of his stomach, though he can’t pin down why. He and Ted had always gotten along fine, but they haven’t spoken since Ted called him three years ago to offer him his old position back in the BSU. Holden had turned it down cold, and Ted had ended the conversation respectfully. This conversation feels the same, though worse with the backdrop of New York coloring in the silences. 

Ted clears his throat. “As you know, the semester is coming to and end. I’m calling because the speaker we had lined up for the Academy graduation ceremony had to drop out unexpectedly. I was wondering if you would consider coming down to take his place.” 

“Oh.” Holden says. “That’s very flattering, Ted, but-”

“I know, it’s short notice.” Ted says, “And you have your own responsibilities at the university; but I was hoping you might make an exception.” 

“Exception?” 

“You told me the last time we spoke that you would never, under any circumstances be coming back to Quantico.” 

“Oh, right.” Holden says, lowering his head. “I hope you’ll forgive me for my stridence the last time we talked. I was-” 

“It’s quite alright.” Ted says, “Will you consider it?” 

“Yes. I’m sorry, I’m just a little taken aback.” 

“I understand. Think about it, but I’ll need the answer quickly.” 

“Okay.” 

“The Academy would be paying for everything. Airfare, the hotel, anything you need.” Ted says, “All you would need to bring is a speech.” 

“Okay.” 

“Okay?” 

“I don’t need to think about it. I’ll do it.” 

“Oh.” Ted says, sounding surprised. “Well, that’s wonderful. I’ll have my assistant reach out with the details once we have everything arranged.” 

“Great.” 

“Good. I think I can speak for everyone when I say it will be a treat to have you back in the halls of Quantico.” 

“Thanks, Ted.” Holden says. He closes his eyes as the question bubbles up from his chest. “Will, um … Will Bill be there?” 

“Yes. We’re having a bit of a soiree for the BSU after the graduation ceremony. This year is a bit of a milestone. We’ve begun teaching courses on profiling at the Academy.” Ted says. 

“That’s incredible.” 

“I believe we sent you an invitation.” Ted says. 

Holden bites his lower lip. He recalls seeing an envelope stamped with the Quantico address a few weeks back, but he’d shoved it to the bottom of the pile with the rest of his unopened mail. 

Ted clears his throat. “I’m sure Bill would love to catch up with you. I have his number if you’d like to call and arrange a time for you to have dinner while you’re in town.”

“No, it’s okay. I- I … have it.” 

Silence stretches across the line for a moment before Ted draws in a deep breath. “Well, it’s been good talking to you again, Holden. Like I said, my assistant will be reaching out.” 

“Yes, thanks again, Ted. I’m really honored.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

They hang up, and Holden drops the receiver to the cradle with a clatter. His heart is pounding, and his hands are itching with a layer of sweat. Bolting up from his desk, Holden strides the window and stares out at the rolling green of the yard below glistening in the afternoon sunlight. He thinks of picking up the phone again and calling Bill right now to demand:  _ Did you have something to do with this?  _ But maybe the invitation is yet another coincidence, a bit of kismet, the universe laughing in his face and telling him that he can’t get away from Quantico - from Bill - no matter how hard he tries. 

Eventually, Holden tears himself away from the window and tamps down his panic long enough to pick up the phone with quite a bit less gumption. 

He dials the number for Quantico, and asks the operator to connect him to Bill’s office. The phone rings three times before a woman answers. 

“Bill Tench’s office.” 

“Hi, is he in?” Holden asks, tapping his fingers on the edge of the desk. 

“He’s on a conference call. Can I ask who’s calling?” The secretary asks. 

“Holden Ford. We’re … friends. Can I talk to him?” 

“Like I said, sir, he’s on a call.” 

“Just tell him who it is. Please.” 

There’s a repressed sigh before the secretary says, “Hold a moment, please.” 

The line clicks and the static is interrupted by hold music, some swelling Mozart composition that sounds hopeful and triumphant. Holden clings to the receiver while he waits, wondering when Bill got a secretary, when it got so hard to get through to him. He wouldn’t know because he never reached out. 

Holden glances at his watch, noting that only two minutes have passed before the line picks up again. 

“Hello?” 

“Hi, Bill.” Holden says, dragging his chair underneath of him and sinking down with a trembling sigh. 

“Holden.” Bill says, his tone guarded. “What can I do for you?” 

“Your secretary is a peach.” Holden says. 

“Sorry. I screen my calls.” Bill says, “I get a lot of weirdos calling, if you know what I mean.” 

“Weirdos like me?” 

“Yeah, something like that.” 

The tension breaks for half a second as Bill chuckles quietly. The sound is sucked away into silence and the low hum of static across the phone line. Holden’s hand is sweaty as he adjusts his grip on the receiver. 

“I just got a call from Ted.” He says, “He’s asked me to speak at the graduation ceremony for the Academy.” 

“I heard.” Bill says, “Are you going to do it?” 

“I said yes.” 

“Oh.” Bill says, “I’m a little surprised, to be honest.” 

“The original speaker dropped out last minute.” Holden says, “It would have been rude to say no.” 

“Is that right?” Bill says, skeptically. “Well, you should be there anyways. There’s going to be a BSU shindig after - it’s the first graduating class that received training in profiling.” 

“Yeah, Ted said so.”

“You don’t sound too excited. Profiling was your baby.” 

“It was your baby, too. They should have asked you to speak.” Holden says, “You were always better at that kind of thing.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Making speeches, telling people what they want to hear. Getting their attention and holding it.” 

“You’ll do fine.” Bill says, “You’ve had plenty of practice being a teacher and all.” 

“Professor.” Holden says. 

“Sorry,  _ Professor  _ Ford.” 

Holden compresses his lips against a smile. Some of his anxiety has slacked off in between Bill’s casual remarks. He doesn’t sound angry. 

“So, how long will you be in town?” Bill asks. 

“I’m not sure. Ted said he would get me the details.” Holden says, “A day or two probably.” 

“Then what?” 

“I go back home.” 

Holden stares at the essay in front of him, the words spilling uniformly across the page but scrambled in the dull roar of his brain. He can feel Bill’s curiosity and need and annoyance melting through the receiver, unspoken thoughts roiling underneath their nonchalant exchanges. 

“Holden,” Bill says, uttering a clipped sigh, “Why are you calling me?” 

“I don’t know. I just thought …. I thought maybe while I’m in town we could have dinner, or-”

“By have dinner you mean…?”

“I mean have dinner.” Holden says, tersely. 

Bill lets out a coarse laugh. “Really? You see what happened the last time we got dinner together.” 

“You’re the one who asked me to visit from time to time.” 

“I also said that was probably a mistake.” Bill says, “You told my secretary that we’re ‘friends.’” 

“What else did you want me to tell her?” 

Bill releases a heavy sigh. “I just want to know what your intentions are when you come here. Are we just friends or …?”

“Yes, but-” 

“But what? Either you’re in or you’re out, Holden.” Bill says.

Holden swallows hard. He curls his fist around the phone cord, and wraps it tightly across his knuckles. 

“Okay.” He whispers. 

“Think about it.” Bill says, “But don’t fuck with me. I can’t do it again, okay?” 

“Okay.” Holden repeats. 

“I’ll see you then.” 

“Yeah. See you.” 

Holden hangs up the phone, and sinks into the leather padding of his chair. Bill’s voice echoes through his head.  _ Think about it.  _ It’s some kind of invitation, and an indicator that Bill’s bitterness is only skin deep. Somewhere deeper, they’re both yearning for reconciliation, to fall into each other the way they had four years ago. 

It had been such a fragile time - Bill newly divorced, Holden grappling with his disorder. They’d both needed something that they couldn’t provide for themselves, and they’d turned to each other so easily, almost as if it had been predestined. He can still remember that first night together in Bill’s apartment, the texture of the couch against his bare skin, the needy ache bursting out of nowhere to grip him. He hadn’t thought to say no. He never does. He’d let it overwhelm him and consume him until that fateful night when everything had boiled over and Ed materialized inside his home, inside his head. Suddenly, it was all too much. Lying in the hospital bed, he’d realized it - Bill loved him, and maybe Holden loved him back; but the version of him that Bill loved was a fraud and a liar, a construct built up around a weak and helpless person who lived with demons inside his head - a person who had let Bill carry him and turn him into someone worthy because that was easier than the truth. 

New York stripped everything back. Bill sees him now, the ugly truth and all his defects; and he’s still asking  _ think about it.  _ Holden can’t not take the invitation. 

~

The night before the graduation ceremony, Bill can hardly sleep thinking about seeing Holden again. He lies in bed, staring through the darkness at the ceiling as the bright, sharp memories of that hotel room in New York play on loop across the back of his eyelids. 

He blames himself. Though he’d accused Holden of orchestrating the tryst, he’s well aware of how easily he’d opened every door leading to that moment. He shouldn’t have asked Holden to go back to the hotel with him for a nightcap, but he had. He shouldn’t have kissed Holden, but he did. He shouldn’t have tasted him again, but he’d wanted to - more than anything. 

He hates himself for being that easy - for letting Holden back in knowing it will hurt again - but some of his anger had melted away in the bruises he’d left on Holden’s skin. It isn’t enough to entirely absolve Holden of the pain he caused, but it’s enough to make Bill question just how long he wants to hang onto his bitterness. 

The next day, Bill gets dressed for the ceremony with butterflies swarming in his belly. He cycles distractedly through five different ties, looping them around his neck and taking each one back off again with a critical gaze. Each one reminds him of Holden - a different city, a different interview, a different hotel room, but every single one the same with Holden’s fingers curling around the fabric to draw him in. He finally settles on one that he can’t directly link to a glowing memory of them, and leaves his apartment with a cigarette draining soothing nicotine into his lungs. 

When he arrives at Quantico, the parking lot is packed out, and the auditorium is swarming with attendants. He fights his way through the crowd to the front row of reserved seats where Ted is having a conversation with a group of other department heads. 

“Bill, you made it.” Ted says, welcoming him into the group with a handshake. He checks his watch, “I thought we were going to start without you.” 

“Sorry I’m late.” Bill says, “Traffic, you know.” 

“Don’t worry. I think they’re running late as well.” Ted says, nodding toward the empty stage, “You know how these things go. The best laid plans and all that.” 

Ted introduces him to the other department heads, and they manage only a brief conversation before the Academy president makes his way on stage and asks for everyone’s attention. 

Bill scans the program, barely absorbing the list of names of other speakers and students before finding Holden’s name printed in bold letters. He misses out on most of the president’s address and the reverend’s benediction while his mind wanders away into what possibilities the day holds. He’d made something of an ultimatum to Holden, but he can’t count on his own-self control when just the sight of Holden’s name on a piece of paper makes his heart palpate. 

As “Pomp and Circumstance” swells through the speakers, and the doors at the back of the auditorium swing open, the whole crowd turns to watch the graduating ensemble file down the aisle. Bill’s gaze combs the robed members at the front of the entourage to find Holden’s face among them. He’s wearing the traditional robe with the cords around his neck, a true academic, and Bill can’t help but feel a little proud. Their gazes briefly connect as Holden walks past the row Bill is seated in, and Bill manages a faint smile. 

The graduating class takes the rows in front of Bill and Ted while the guest speakers join the president on stage. Holden is seated just behind the podium, in view of Bill’s wandering gaze. Past the triangular edges of graduation caps, Bill meets his gaze, and the distance seems more profound than ever - shorter than it’s ever been, yet greater in its meaning, in all the things Bill demands and all the things that Holden is holding back. 

Bill sits through the speeches by the students, trying vainly to focus on what the valedictorian is saying while his gaze keeps getting pulled back to Holden. When they announce Holden as the next speaker, Bill claps with the rest of the crowd. 

The overhead lights seem to intensify as Holden walks up to the podium and lays the folder containing his speech open in front of him. 

“Good afternoon.” His voice is soft against the microphone, nearly drowned out by the ring of negative feedback. 

Bill rolls the program up in his fist, and holds it tightly in his lap. 

“As most of you know, I founded the BSU department with my partner, Bill Tench, several years ago.” Holden says, glancing up from his paper to scan the crowd. His gaze picks Bill out of the sea of faces, clinging on with a gripping intensity despite the distance. “Bill is here today, and he deserves to be up on this stage as much as I do.” 

Bill shifts uncomfortably as nearly every pair of eyes in the house turns to follow Holden’s gaze. 

“A round of applause for my partner.” Holden says. 

The crowd breaks into applause, and Bill nods and manages a smile. As the clapping subsides, Holden clears his throat into the microphone. 

“Most of you know the story, but let me take you back for a moment to the year 1978. It was a summer in California, and Bill and I were doing road school.” Holden’s voice flows through the speakers like honey, steady and calm. “Ed Kemper, the Co-Ed Killer, had recently been arrested for the murder of eight students at the University of California, and he was the open book I was looking for.” 

Bill glances away as Holden’s voice carries on, laying out the details of the birth of profiling. He’s talking about tenacity and innovation, but Bill is thinking about a string of motel rooms and where it all started, those late nights when Holden just wouldn’t shut about Kemper’s insights and he was longing for home, thinking anywhere would be better than here; but deep down, beyond his exhaustion and his defenses, he’d enjoyed every second on the road with Holden, his yearning for life reignited, their mutual vision for the BSU evolving into something he could be proud of while their relationship knitted closer and closer in between violent cases and deranged killers. By the time he’d kissed Holden for the first time in his apartment, on the lumpy frayed couch he’d bought from the Good Will after Nancy left, it almost felt like a natural conclusion to a long story, a failure in a string of failures that could look like a good thing in just the right light. Then, he’d fallen hard, head-over-heels, and it didn’t fucking matter if everyone else in the world had to squint to see them as good and right. 

After the ceremony comes to a close, the crowd moves from the auditorium to the cafeteria where folding tables are set up end-to-end offering an array of horderves. Most of the attendants are standing in clusters around the graduates, carrying on lively conversations. Ted abandons Bill to rub shoulders with the president and the director, leaving him alone by the dessert table. 

Bill snags a cup of coffee, and digs in his pocket for his cigarettes. As he lights up, he looks through the cloud of smoke to see Holden surrounded by a cluster of Academy professors. He’s still wearing the ceremony robe, but he removed the hat. His hair is matted in stubborn, sweaty curls against his temples, and Bill can tell that he’s uncomfortable with the uniform.

A hand on his elbow drags his attention away from Holden. 

“Hi, Bill.” The familiar voice alerts him just before he turns around to see Wendy at his elbow. 

“Wendy, I didn’t know you were coming.” He says, grasping her elbow. 

She leans in to give him a brief hug before pulling back with a faint smile. “I just got in. Sorry I missed the ceremony.” 

“You made it for the best part. We’re about to head out for the department party.” Bill says, “The director wanted to throw us a big bash to celebrate the new curriculum.” 

“I heard.” Wendy says. Her gaze shifts over to his shoulder to glimpse Holden. “Is he coming?” 

“He said he was.” Bill says, averting his gaze across the room to where Holden is trapped in a circle of enthralled professors and department heads. “He’s eating it up, don’t you think?” 

“Mm, I wasn’t sure he would.” Wendy says, “Have you spoken to him?” 

“Yeah, um …” Bill clears his throat. “We kind of ran into each other in New York a few weeks ago.” 

“Oh, really?” 

“Yeah, we got dinner.” 

“How’s he doing?” Wendy asks, “We haven’t spoken in some time. The last time we talked was I think two years ago. He called me out of the blue to thank me for the letter of recommendation I sent to the university.” 

“He seems great.” Bill says, “Says he loves his job. He’s obviously thriving.” 

“And you?” 

Bill shifts his gaze up to meet Wendy’s gently intuitive stare. He might have prickled defensively if anyone else had asked him that question so pointedly, but she’s already painfully aware of most of his demons. He’d never told her about his relationship with Holden, but a part of him wonders if she’d pieced it together on her own. The thought resurfaces now as her gaze picks apart his nonchalant facade to glimpse to the pain rippling underneath. 

“I’m fine.” Bill says, “The department is doing great. I’m spending a lot of time with Brian. It’s good.” 

She smiles, gently. “That’s great to hear.” 

“What about you? I’m sorry it’s been so long since we’ve talked.” 

“It’s okay. We’ve both been busy.” Wendy says, “I’m doing well. I’m nearly done with my new book.” 

“I can’t wait to read it.” 

“I’ll send you the manuscript when I’m done.” 

Ted interrupts them a few minutes later to announce that everyone from the BSU should be heading over to the dining hall. Bill searches for Holden’s face in the crowd of suits and robes heading for the door, but he’s slipped out of sight. 

In the dining hall, jazzy piano music lilts over the hum of conversation. The champagne is already flowing when Ted stands up to make a speech. 

Bill and Wendy find an unoccupied table in the corner, and Bill discreetly scans the other tables. Holden has been roped into yet another conversation, this time with Cynthia’s arm wrapped around his elbow. 

Bill swallows back a fizzy swig of champagne as he watches Cynthia practically swoon from a distance. He’s more amused than annoyed by her star-struck infatuation though a part of him is thinking about going over there to extricate Holden from her unending string of questions. He frowns at the childish pang of jealousy in his chest, and shoves it down hard with another drink. 

After Ted finishes his speech, the waiters roll out the catered dinner on wheeled trays. Bill shoves aside the glass of champagne, and asks for whiskey instead. Wendy orders white wine. 

“So, what were you doing in New York?” She asks once they’re alone again. 

“I was with my partner on a case.” Bill says. 

“The girls with the missing tongues?” 

“That’s the one.” Bill says, “You keep your ear to the ground, don’t you?” 

“I get asked about current cases at lectures, book signings, everywhere.” Wendy says, “I still consult on cases, too, if you recall.” 

“Of course. You seem to be thriving, too.” 

“I am.” She says, smiling softly as she turns her wine glass between her fingers. “I feel happy for the first time in awhile.” 

“Getting away from the bureaucracy of the FBI suits you.” Bill says, smiling ruefully. “Holden, too. Maybe I should consider it, huh?” 

“Honestly, Bill, I couldn’t imagine you doing anything else.” She chuckles. 

“Me, either. It’s too late to teach this old dog any new tricks.” 

“As long as you’re happy …” 

Bill shrugs. “I’m just trying to focus on spending as much time with my son as I can. Nancy and I are finally on the same page about everything with him. I’m feeling hopefully optimistic.” 

“That isn’t the same thing as happiness, though, is it?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the closest I’ll ever get.” He says, pushing at the steaming mound of baked potato with his fork. “It’s fine, you know; I can live with it.” 

He can feel her gaze sticking curiously to his temple, and he purses his lips shut. Wendy has a way of extracting honesty from anyone, and it isn’t that he doesn’t trust her. He has no doubt she would keep he and Holden’s secret if he told her, but speaking it to someone else might suddenly make it real, too real. He’s trying to contain the chaos. It wouldn’t be fair to put those old wounds on her shoulders alongside his own. 

Bill diverts the conversation back to Wendy’s new book, and the distraction sticks for the next fifteen minutes until Holden escapes from the table across the room to where Bill and Wendy are sequestered in the corner. 

“Hi, Wendy. Bill. Do you mind if I join you?” He asks. 

“Of course.” Wendy says, waving at the empty chair beside her. “Please. It’s been ages.” 

“I know. I’m sorry.” Holden says, wincing apologetically as he sits down. “It’s my fault.” 

“It’s okay. I know you’re busy.” She says, “But it’s good to see you. How’s Boston?” 

“Amazing.” Holden says, “I really like it. I really can’t thank you enough for recommending me to the university.” 

“You’re welcome. I’m very glad to see that it’s suiting you so well.” 

“How are you doing? Holden asks, “Are you still living here in Virginia?”

“Yes. Closer to Richmond.” She says, focusing on her plate as she adds, “My partner lives there.” 

“That’s great. I heard you’re writing a new book.” 

“Yes. It’s nearly done. And you? Have you thought about writing another?” 

“I don’t know.” Holden says, “Maybe.” 

“I would love to read it. The first one was, quite frankly, one of the best books I’ve ever read.” 

“Thanks, Wendy, that means a lot.” 

Bill takes a stiff drink of his whiskey as he watches them converse. Candlelight casts long, yellow fingers and shadow across Holden’s face, deepening the curve of his jawline and the softness of his mouth. A twisted tangle of emotion knots his chest as their proximity reignites the memory of New York into a red wash across the back of his mind. Part of him wants to stand up and ask Holden to leave the party with him while another strictly reminds him that there’s another flight back to Boston awaiting Holden once the day is over. If he got hurt all over again, it would be his fault alone this time. 

Wendy and Holden are engaged in deep conversation about their books when Ted approaches the table. 

“Well, isn’t this a sight to see.” He says, clapping Bill on the shoulder. “The old BSU team, back together again.” 

“It only took four years.” Bill says, raising his glass of whiskey. 

“I hope you’re all enjoying the evening.” Ted says, “We’re here because of you three.” 

“Thank you, Ted.” Wendy says, “Everything is wonderful.” 

“I’m afraid I have to break things up.” Ted says, putting a hand on Holden’s shoulder, “I told the new psychology professor I would introduce him to the man whose wisdom he’s now teaching our students.” 

“Of course.” Holden says, smiling amiably. “Wendy, it was really good to see you. We need to get dinner and catch up.” 

“Don’t worry, I’ll find you later.”

They both watch as Ted drags Holden away into the crowd, his hand braced familiarly on Holden’s back. 

“Maybe you should have written a book as well.” Wendy says, casting him a playful smile, “Then you would have the joy of being paraded like a show pony on Ted’s arm for the rest of the night.” 

“Better him than me.” Bill scoffs, “I did enough of that when I was his age.” 

“He seems happy enough to oblige.” 

“Yeah, I don’t care what he says. I think he enjoys the spotlight.” 

“Mm. He seems different, don’t you think?” Wendy observes, her gaze tracking Holden from across the room as he shakes hands with the psychology professor. 

“I guess.” 

“He was always serious about the work, but … he seems tempered.” Wendy says, her brow knitting softly. 

“Life will do that to you.” 

“It’s probably for the best that he left the BSU when he did. It could have ended much differently for him.” 

“Probably. But he could have done it better.” Bill says, “The way he just up and left with no warning …” 

Wendy’s gaze shifts back to him, and he can see her deciphering the unfinished part of that complaint. 

“It was cold, but I understand why he did it.” Wendy says, softly. “Maybe if he’d given you the chance, you might have convinced him to stay.” 

“I wish he had. Maybe that’s selfish.” 

“He valued your opinion. You both knew that.” 

“Apparently not enough.” Bill says, “He could have been anywhere, Wendy. I had no way of knowing if he was okay or not. He never wrote or called. Nothing. Radio silence for four years. I’m not even sure he would have come here today if we hadn’t accidentally run into each other in New York.”

Wendy leans back in her chair, assessing him with a somber gaze. “Did something happen?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“In New York.” 

“Like what?” 

Wendy’s eyes narrow. She lets the question hang for a moment before drawing in a deep breath. 

“I’m going to step outside and have a cigarette.” She says, rising from her chair, and tucking her purse over her shoulder. “Do you want to join me?” 

Bill swallows hard. “Sure.” 

They slip out of the dining hall and past the front doors to the sidewalk where the sky is blushing the colors of bluebirds and cotton candy. The warmth of the summer breeze stirs through the trees while the chorus of crickets is just beginning to swell against the impending dusk. 

Wendy retrieves her cigarettes from her purse, and hands one to him. 

As she presses the smoke to her mouth, he fishes his lighter out of his pocket, and holds the flame up for her. 

Her mouth purses around the cigarette as smoke ignites. Bill lights his own cigarette as she leans back, plucking it from her mouth to exhale a cloud of smoke. 

“We’ve known each other for a long time, Bill, so I’m just going to do you the favor of honesty.” She says, casting him a sharp gaze. 

Bill sucks on his own cigarette, focusing his gaze on a fracture in the sidewalk. “Honesty about what?” 

“I knew five years ago that there was something going on between you two.” She says, her tone softening. “You didn’t exactly do a professional job of hiding it.” 

“I don’t know what you-”

“Bill, I’m a lesbian.” 

Bill’s gaze leaps up from the sidewalk. She’s staring at him placidly, outwardly unperturbed by this sudden admission. Silence stretches on for a long moment. For half a second, he thinks about laughing, and giving her the opportunity to play it off as a joke; but the glassy sheen in her eyes and the faint quiver in her mouth tells him that option would be a mistake. 

“But, I think you already knew that.” She says, finally, glancing away as she takes a brief drag of her cigarette. 

Bill swallows hard, and focuses on the sunset stretching across the treeline. “I, um … I wondered if …”

“I was out in Boston before I came here to Quantico.” She says, “But I never told anyone because I knew it would jeopardize our work. Homosexuality is still classified as a sexual disturbance. At the time, I valued my work more than personal honesty.” 

Bill taps ashes towards the sidewalk, and peeks a glimpse at her stoic profile. 

She blows smoke past pursed lips, and frowns softly. “I became very adept at hiding who I really was. So much so that I nearly ruined the first real, valuable relationship I’d had in years.” 

The chirp of crickets swells to fill the silence for a long moment. When Wendy’s gaze reaches over to meet Bill’s, he feels a part of himself strip back despite his reticence. 

“I recognized it in myself, and I recognize it in you too.” She says, “You can tell me I’m wrong if it makes you feel better, but I just want you to know that you can be honest with me. You can confide in me if you want to. I know what it’s like to ruin a good thing, and have to fight tooth and nail to get it back.” 

Bill draws in a shuddering breath. His chest is constricted tight with panic, but it isn’t the idea that Wendy knows the truth that scares him. It’s the idea that he might have to face it within himself, that he might have to admit he’s been wrong, that he might have to plunge into the future without anything stable to hold onto.

He glances away, taking a drag of his cigarette. He blinks against the stinging haze blurring his vision. 

“You’re, um …” He clears his throat when his voice erupts meek and strangled. “You’re right.” 

She ducks her head, and nods softly. 

“We, uh …” He clenches his jaw, and presses his eyes shut. “We were … involved before Holden left.” 

“That must have been incredibly hard.” 

“I was livid.” Bill says, opening his eyes to see her gazing compassionately at him. “He just up and left. No warning. He said he would call, and he never fucking did. He just disappeared out of my life like none of it ever fucking happened.” 

She presses her cigarette to her mouth, inhaling shakily. 

“You know, I lived through Nancy leaving.” Bill says, “It hurt, but I got over it. I knew we weren’t going to make it. But this … it just hit me out of nowhere. He pulled the fucking rug right out from under me.” 

“Did he ever say why?” 

“I know why.” Bill says, angrily flicking ashes at the pavement. “A couple weeks before he left, he called 9-1-1 on himself because he was having an episode. He actually had a hallucination that Kemper was in his apartment. When I got to the hospital, he was in the psych ward. They had him restrained, Wendy. Like he was some kind of danger to himself or others.” 

“Jesus, Bill. I had no idea.” 

“Neither did I. He told me he was handling it.” Bill says, shaking his head. “That he could deal with the panic attacks. I had no fucking clue it was that serious.” 

“It makes sense. He was scared.” Wendy says, “Probably a bit humiliated for you to see him that way.” 

“It didn’t make sense at the time.” Bill says, “I was just really fucking pissed.” 

“I understand that, too.” 

Bill sighs, heavily. “I just thought I was over it. I thought I’d put it behind me, and moved on. Then we saw each other in New York, and it was like- … I fucked up.” 

“You had sex?” 

Bill’s gaze jumps to Wendy’s before cutting away again. Heat crawls up his throat and cheeks, and he rubs a hand over to his jaw to physically shove down the nauseating shame. 

“Yeah.” He mutters.

Wendy nods, her brow furrowed as she considers everything he’s admitted. 

“Has he apologized?” She asks. “For leaving?” 

“Yes. A lot of times.” 

“Do you think you can forgive him?” 

“It’s not a matter of whether or not I can forgive him.” Bill says, “It’s a matter of trust. How do I know he won’t leave again?” 

“People really do change, Bill.” She says, “They may not always be what we expect or want them to be, but they do learn from their mistakes. Sometimes, you have to go out on a limb and trust that they’ve figured out where they went wrong, and that they truly want to make things right.” 

“I don’t know.” Bill says, pressing his cigarette to his lips. “What do I ever fucking know? I wish I knew what he was thinking.” 

“Well, then. Maybe you should ask him.” She says, “You’ll never know for sure if you don’t.” 

“You’re probably right.” 

“I know I am.” Wendy says, “I’ve been through this, Bill. Only I was in Holden’s position, and Kay was in yours. I’m not sure we would have reconciled if she hadn’t had the heart to reach back out to me. She didn’t let me run away. She knew she had a good thing, and she didn’t let hurt feelings get in the way of her going after it.” 

“Kay.” Bill says, “Is that her name? Your partner?” 

“Yes.” Wendy says, a smile perking up her mouth. She slips a hand under the collar of her shirt, and pulls out a necklace with a locket dangling on it. She flips the pendant open to reveal a picture of a dark-haired woman smiling brightly. “We’ve been together for five years now.” 

“That’s great. I’m happy for you.” 

“Thanks.” She says, tucking the locket away again, and reaching over to loop hand around his elbow. “Things really do get better. You just have to let them.” 

Sighing, Bill drops his cigarette to the pavement, and puts his hand over her fingers clasped against his arm. “Thanks, Wendy.” 

They watch the sunset deepen into dusky pink and purple for a few quiet minutes before Wendy finishes her cigarette, and crushes it beneath her high heel. 

“We should probably get back.” She says. 

“Yeah. Probably.”

She nods her head back towards the dining hall. “Come on.” 

He follows her up the sidewalk and through the front doors of the dining hall where the conversations have risen to a dull roar and the air is wreathed with cigarette smoke. Bill’s gaze combs the crowded tables to locate Holden sitting with Cynthia and a group of other BSU rookies. He looks suitably distressed despite the amiable smile on his face. 

Bill shoulders his way past the groups of professors, agents, and department heads until he reaches the table. 

Holden glances up sharply when he sees Bill approaching, the smile dropping from his mouth in exchange for a quiver of anxiety. 

Bill barely acknowledges Cynthia and her friends as he puts a hand on Holden’s back. Leaning over, he whispers in Holden’s ear, “Do you want to get out of here?” 

He pulls back just far enough to glimpse the surprise in the flutter of Holden’s eyelashes and the rush of color riding high on his cheeks. 

Holden nods, softly. 

“I’m sorry.” Bill says, turning to flash a smile at the young agents crowded around the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to steal my old partner back for a little bit.” 

They exclaim in dismay, but Cynthia wards them off with a wave of her hand. “Go ahead. I think we’ve hogged him long enough.” 

Rising to his feet, Holden turns to cast Bill a curious gaze. 

Bill nods his head toward the door. “Come on. Let’s go.” 

“We’ve leaving?” Holden whispers. 

“Yeah, unless you’d rather stay here and entertain the recruits for the rest of the night.” 

“No, not really.”

“Come on, then.” 

Bill leads them through the churning mass of bodies towards the front door. They pass the table where Wendy is nursing her glass of wine alone, and she casts him an encouraging smile. 

As they emerge into the clean, warm summer air, Holden catches him by the elbow. 

“Where are we going?” He asks, softly. His blue eyes are heavy and faded from alcohol, and the blush on his cheeks is an enticing pink. Bill wants to kiss him, right here in front of the entire BSU department. 

“I was thinking we could go to my place.” Bill says, “The alcohol isn’t as good, but it’s quiet.” 

Holden’s brow furrows in confusion. “You want to take me home?”

“Isn’t that why you came here?” 

Holden glances away, his teeth tucking against his lower lip. 

“Holden?” Bill presses. “Tell me it isn’t, and you can go back to the party.”

Holden momentarily presses his eyes shut before cutting his gaze back to Bill. “It’s exactly what I want, Bill.”

Bill draws in a shaky breath. “Me too.” 

A smile quivers a the corners of Holden’s mouth. “Okay.” 

“Okay.” Bill echoes. 

Silently, they cross the parking lot to where Bill’s car is located, and get inside. As Bill pulls the car away from Quantico, the sun begins to sink below the trees, leaving bands of pink and gold in its wake. Bill focuses on the freeway stretching out ahead of them, glimpsing possibility in the brilliant array of color. 


	4. Chapter 4

Bill’s apartment is almost exactly as Holden recalls it. The television is newer, and the drapes are a different color; but the couch is the same one where they shared their first kiss, and the refrigerator is the same white monstrosity with the fan that runs far too loudly during the summer. Holden notices the recent, framed photographs of Bill and Brian as he wanders into the living room, his nerves dancing jitterily in his belly.

Bill shuffles in ahead of him, shedding his jacket over the back of the recliner. 

“You want a beer?” He asks, heading for the kitchen. “Maybe something stronger?” 

“Whatever you have.”

Holden wanders farther into the living room as Bill disappears into the kitchen. His gaze sweeps across the cushions as he pauses near the arm of the couch. Behind the shutter of his eyelids, he can see Bill’s face outlined in dim lamplight, his mouth wet from the sloppy passion of that first kiss, his breath tumbling broken and desperate from his throat. They hadn’t exchanged any more words after. Bill had just looked at him like that, hungry with need, and Holden had succumbed with little more than a whimper. 

“Here you go.” 

Holden’s eyelids jolt open when Bill nudges his elbow with the beer bottle, and brings him back to the present. 

“Thanks.” Holden mutters, accepting the beer. “I can’t believe you still have this couch.” 

“Yeah.” Bill says, shrugging. “I never found the time to buy a new one.” 

“If you’re bringing men home, maybe you should consider it.”

Bill bristles, and Holden ducks his head. “Sorry, that was a bad joke.”

Bill scoffs, “I don’t bring men home, Holden.” 

Holden bites his lower lip, silently cursing himself. He draws in a deep breath, and carefully shifts his gaze up to find Bill’s.

“I’m sorry.” He says, “I’m just not sure what we're doing here.” 

Bill takes a drink of his beer, and Holden’s gaze catches on the constriction of his throat swallowing it down. Bill lets the beer bottle sink to his side and dangle from his fingers as he sighs quietly. 

“I’m not sure either.” Bill says, “I just … I didn’t want you to leave that party tonight without-”

Holden hesitates, waiting for Bill to finish the thought. Instead, silence extends between them, and he glances over to see Bill pursing his lips, focusing on a distant spot on the wall. 

Holden feels his throat thicken. Gripping the cold glass of the beer bottle in his sweating palm, he whispers, “In New York, you said that you … that you loved me.” 

Bill’s chest rises with a hitched breath. A frown tugs at his brow as he shakes his head. “Yeah.” 

“You don’t look happy about it.” Holden murmurs. 

“Well, what else do you expect?” Bill asks, cutting a sharp glance at him. “You left, Holden; and you have no fucking idea how … how broken I was over you.” 

Heat flushes Holden’s cheeks, and his chest tightens. He blinks hard against the instant sting of tears that springs to his eyelids. 

“Bill, I’m sorry; I-”

“Stop.” Bill whispers, lowering his head. 

Holden purses his trembling lips shut. His chest lurches with the thought of escape, of leaving the apartment before this night turns into something far too close to New York. 

“Stop apologizing.” Bill says, his voice softer this time. 

He sets his beer down on the side table, and catches Holden’s fingers in his own. Holden mutes a quiet sound of surprise as Bill draws him closer, his other hand rising to grip Holden’s hip. 

“It’s over.” Bill whispers, “I’ve forgiven you. I just need to know that you’re not going to leave again.” 

Holden’s chest shudders with a tearful breath as the words wash over him like a soothing balm against an open wound. When he’d agreed to come here, he’d expected residual anger and resentment about how things in New York ended. He’d expected raw need sharpened by bitterness. He’d expected the same brand of reckless desire that had exploded in that hotel room. He’d expected everything except this - except tenderness, except forgiveness. 

“I don’t want to.” Holden whispers, setting his own beer aside to grasp Bill’s chest. “I don’t want to leave ever again. I-”

Bill’s mouth captures his before Holden can say anything else, before he can try to explain himself or make promises he’s not sure he can keep. The crush of warm lips tinged by beer and cigarettes takes the breath out of his lungs, and he clings to Bill’s chest while the kiss pushes his mouth open. 

Bill palms Holden’s cheek as his tongue curls past Holden’s open, panting lips to taste the inside of his mouth. His lips stroke steadily and hungrily across Holden’s, so thoroughly that Holden can feel the sting of friction tingling across his lips, but he doesn’t want it to stop. He leans into it, groaning from the back of his throat as Bill’s fingers sink into his hair, tilting his head back into submission beneath the desperate stroke of the kiss. 

Enthralled by the sweet caress of Bill’s mouth, Holden barely registers that fact that Bill’s hand is against his hip, urging them back towards the couch until he feels the edge of the cushions against the backs of his knees. By then, it’s too late to reconsider what’s about to happen, and he lets his body sink compliantly towards the cushions. 

Bill’s arm curls around his waist, guiding the slow fall back against the couch. His mouth doesn’t let up for a moment as he nudges Holden’s legs open with his knee, and settles down between them. The weight of his hips sinks down against Holden’s, pinning the growing quiver working it’s way delicately through every tender, aching inch of body crying out in need. 

Arousal thrums in a dull ache between Holden’s thighs, but he doesn’t try to urge Bill into a faster pace or expedite the encounter into something more than the kiss. He clings onto every moment of Bill’s mouth stroking across his, memorizing the taste and texture, memorizing the gentle caress of Bill’s thumb against his cheek. He lets himself sink into the long, pulsing seconds, his chest surging with joy at the simple contact of Bill’s body against his, his arms wrapped fiercely around Holden’s waist as if he’s afraid Holden could slip out of his grasp like water. 

When Bill’s mouth lifts away from his, Holden gasps in a shaky breath. He peeks up at Bill past swimming tears, trying desperately to swallow back the emotion before it ruins the taut, aching need elongating between them. 

Bill’s thumb presses softly against the corner of his eye, soothing away vagrant moisture. 

“What’s wrong?” He whispers, his breath hot against Holden’s cheeks. 

“Nothing.” Holden whimpers, clutching at his shirt collar. “Please, don’t stop.” 

Bill’s mouth curves softly just before he presses another kiss to Holden’s mouth, eating up the sound of his shuddering breaths, his soft, broken moans. Holden tilts his chin up into the slick, mounting pressure, allowing his mouth to lapse open against the press of Bill’s tongue. 

It strokes deeper this time, licking across Holden’s tongue and up against the roof of his mouth before retreating for Bill to suck across his trembling lower lip. As the kiss smears across his cheek, Holden arches his neck open to allow Bill’s mouth to travel lower. Tingles wash down his spine at the first slick press of Bill’s lips nuzzling beneath his earlobe, and he can’t stem the shaky cry that surges from the back of his throat. 

Bill hastily unbuttons his shirt as he kisses lower and lower against Holden’s neck, at last finding the ridge of his collarbone. He yanks the shirt back from Holden’s shoulders, and follows the length of bone all the way down to his shoulder where he stamps a wet, clinging kiss. 

Holden breathes hard as Bill pulls back to pin him with a simmering, hungry gaze. His thumb strokes Holden’s cheek hard, pushing against his wet lower lip. 

“Fuck,” He mutters, dragging Holden up from the cushions so that he can strip the shirt from his arms. His mouth momentarily collides with Holden’s before drawing back to whisper desire into the corner of his mouth. “I want you.” 

Holden pushes his forehead against Bill’s, closing his eyes against the desperate need exploding behind his eyelids. 

“I want you, too.” He whispers, the words broken and raspy. He swallows hard as Bill’s fingers work their way beneath his undershirt, thrilling the curve of his spine with a gentle stroke. “I want you to fuck me.” 

Bill pauses, his breath hitching against Holden’s cheek. 

Holden opens his eyes to see Bill staring back at him, need bursting to life in the hazy blue, yet barely contained by trepidation. 

“I want you inside me.” Holden says, shifting closer. 

Bill’s fingers push the undershirt up against his ribs, and Holden lifts his arms to let the garment come off over his head. Bill discards the shirt, and bends to press a kiss against his bare shoulder. 

“If I do, that’s it.” Bill whispers, his fingers climbing Holden’s ribs to graze his nipple. “You can’t take it back like New York.” 

“I know. I don’t want to.” Holden whispers, biting back a groan as Bill’s fingers pinch around his nipple. 

Bill’s mouth drifts away from his shoulder, and he casts Holden a heavy-lidded glance that’s swimming with untapped needs. 

“Okay.” He murmurs. “Get undressed, and I’ll be right back.” 

Holden sinks back against the arm of the couch as Bill’s weight leaves his body. His heart is pounding, but it doesn’t hold the sick, scared rhythm it had during the hotel room encounter. That moment had been brusque and terrifying, more like a few rounds in a boxing ring with an enraged opponent rather than sex. He’d been scared that it would be his last chance to remember what Bill’s hands on him felt like, so desperate that he’d allowed it to overwhelm and intimidate him. He’s not going to let that happen this time. 

He unbuckles his belt with shaking fingers, and strips out of his trousers and briefs. The fabric comes away from his skin, leaving him bare and hard. His cock flexes against his thigh as his skin comes into contact with the texture of the couch, old sense memory layering over new sensation in a heady blur. 

Holden tucks one of the pillows under his head, and lays down across the couch. He can hear Bill’s footsteps returning from the other room, and he lifts his arms over his head to create an eager pose. 

Bill’s stride slows as he reaches the couch. He’s holding a jar of Vaseline in his fist. 

Holden squirms against the couch. The very sight of the lubricant makes his insides twist with aroused intuition. 

Bill’s gaze tracks it’s way down his body, his nostrils flaring with a deep breath when he reaches Holden’s hard, pulsing cock. His jaw clenches as he sets the Vaseline on the coffee table, and reaches up to unbutton his shirt. 

As each layer of fabric peels away, Holden shifts impatiently against the cushions. Eagerness itches across his bare skin, and the hollow ring of his body echoes with need that’s been left unsatisfied for far too long. 

By the time Bill strips out of his underwear, Holden’s can feel the pulse radiating from his cock through his whole body. His cheeks flush hot as his gaze lands on Bill’s hardening cock, and he thinks of it stretching him open and plunging inside. 

Bill saunters to the edge of the couch, his gaze tracking heatedly across Holden’s wide-eyed expression of need and down his naked, trembling body. He bends to grasp Holden’s ankle, and slowly extends his leg upwards until Holden’s heel is resting against his shoulder. 

Holden bites back a whimper as Bill’s swallowing gaze breaks away and his mouth turns to press a kiss against the inside of Holden’s ankle. Without his hands all over Holden’s body, the grazing sensation of the kiss stands out singly against Holden’s humming skin, sending a wave of tingles down his leg and into his groin. 

Gripping onto the cushions, Holden struggles to stay still as Bill’s mouth wanders lower, slowly yet steadily making its way along the curve of Holden’s calf in a straight, simmering line. 

As he reaches Holden’s knee, he casts a glance up at Holden’s slack expression of stricken need. A faint smile tugs at his mouth. 

Holden’s teeth sink into his lower lip. He can feel a cry of desperation swelling in his chest, but his throat is locked tight with breathless anticipation. Every slow kiss touches a place that hasn’t been graced with intimate human contact in years. Every second is a staggering battleground of vulnerability, Holden swallowing back the sudden, gripping fear that Bill will see him, really see him; wondering if he goes any slower if Bill will realize midway into this encounter that he’s making a mistake. But, Holden can’t move to run away, and he can’t open his mouth to speak. He lies helplessly still as Bill sinks to his knees, his mouth stamping it’s way down the inside of Holden’s thigh, his hands urging Holden’s legs up against his chest. 

Holden gasps when Bill’s broad, firm hands seize his hips, dragging him closer to the edge of the couch and his mouth. His eyes jolt open just in time to glimpse Bill’s eyes peeking over the swollen jut of his cock rocking against his belly before any kind of logical thought gets stripped away by the wet glide of Bill’s tongue. 

Holden’s spine arches wildly from the couch when Bill’s mouth touches him, the sensation racing through his nerve-endings like electricity. The thrum of his blood leaps into a stampede, flushing every inch of him with hot, quaking desire. He pushes his feet across Bill’s shoulders, urging the sensation closer, faster. 

Bill’s palms graze his ass cheeks, gently spreading him open while his tongue swirls in slow, dizzying circles against his hole. The pace is measured and resolute, applying just enough pressure with every revolution to make Holden’s eyes roll back in bliss. He takes his time lathering the opening with saliva, sucking on the taut pucker of skin, easing Holden’s trembling body open to his touch before thrusting his tongue inside. 

A strangled moan lurches from Holden’s throat. His blood sings with pleasure that draws everything unbearably tight. The space between his hips seems to collapse, constricting in upon itself in a sharpened spasm of arousal. Digging his toes into Bill’s shoulders, he thrusts down against the divine, wet pressure mounting against him, slowly working him open. 

“Yes…” He whimpers as Bill’s tongue slides into him, fucking him sweetly, gently. 

Everything coils hot and tight. Holden feels his hand instinctively unwinding from its grasp on the cushion to reach for his hard, aching cock. His fingers brush against the swollen head where he’s leaking pre-cum, and he cries out a gasping, whining sound of desperation. 

“Oh, fuck …” He groans, twisting his fingers around the shaft, pulling the faint tingles of pleasure towards him. “I’m close, I’m going to-”

His babbling pleasure cuts off abruptly when Bill’s head retreats from between his thighs. 

Holden’s feet tumble from his shoulders, and his eyes spring open to glimpse Bill reaching for the Vaseline. Pressing his mouth shut, he tries to manage his frantic breathing. His body is humming and alert with half-realized pleasure, every inch groaning and demanding the release he’d seen cresting behind his eyelids only moments ago. 

Bill uncaps the Vaseline, and dips his fingers into the ointment. Shooting Holden a burning gaze, he nods for him to lift his legs again. 

Pursing his lips over an impatient sound of arousal, Holden clutches his knees and drags them to his chest again. 

Bill crawls onto the couch in front of him, his gaze drifting from Holden’s tensed expression of anticipation to his exposed backside, his cock writhing between his upraised thighs. He rubs his slick fingers into his palm, warming the Vaseline between his skin before extending his touch to Holden’s body. 

Holden clings to the obliterated remnants of his self-control as the first caress of Bill’s blunt, wet fingertips draws deliberately across his hole. The responding clench of muscle ripples from the center of his body and outward, bringing his back arching sharply and his mouth stretching open in a strangled sob of aroused joy. It’s been so long that it feels like the first time all over again, his body clenching and flushing against the intrusion before sinking into the satisfaction of it, relearning what Bill’s fingers feel like inside of him. 

Bill’s palm grasps the underside of his thigh, carefully bracing him. “You okay?” 

Holden cracks his eyelids open to glimpse Bill gazing back at him attentively. 

“Yes.” Holden whispers, nodding vigorously. “Keep going.” 

Bill shifts closer, dropping a kiss against Holden’s knee as he urges a finger inside. 

Holden mutes a whimper behind the clench of his jaw. The initial clamp of his body eases with a few gentle thrusts of Bill’s hand, and he can feel himself coming apart beneath the sweet, steady duress of that touch opening him up. 

Holden clings the cushions, moaning, “Oh, fuck. More.” 

Bill crowds between his thighs as he presses a second finger inside. Hovering over Holden’s trembling body, he watches the pleasure write it’s way across Holden’s fluttering eyelashes, his flushed cheeks, his open, gasping mouth. He pumps both fingers in and out, gaining speed with every moan of encouragement that spills from Holden’s mouth. 

The tension melts from Holden’s body, boiling down into something closer to hungry, pounding need. He urges his hips up against the pressure until he feels his body give way, lapsing open to the touch. Bill’s fingers thrust down against his prostate, and Holden’s cock spasms, weeping needy pre-cum. 

“Oh, fuck.” Holden moans, forcing his eyelids open to meet Bill’s concentrated gaze. “That’s good. That’s enough.” 

Bill’s fingers ease to a stop and slip out of him. 

“Ready?” He murmurs. 

Holden purses his lips over a groan, and nods eagerly.

As Bill dips his fingers into the Vaseline again, he presses a hot, panting kiss to Holden’s mouth. Their lips cling hungrily to one another until Bill leans back just far enough to smear the Vaseline over his cock. 

“Fuck.” He mutters, his breath hot against Holden’s cheek. “I’ve been thinking about this all day.” 

Holden shudders as the admission twists his insides with fresh, aching pleasure. “Me too.” 

Bill’s cockhead brushes against him, and Holden gasps at the simple graze of skin. He can feel how hot with racing blood Bill’s cock is, how hard he is, the way he’s throbbing with an intensity that matches Holden’s own desperation. 

Bill mutes a groan behind the clench of his teeth. 

“I’ve been thinking about it since New York.” He whispers, resting his forehead against Holden’s. “I never stopped.” 

Holden wraps his legs around Bill’s waist, dragging him closer. The hot, blunt pressure of Bill’s cock leans against his hole, encountering faint resistance before slipping just inside. 

“Oh, fuck.” Holden gasps, clinging to Bill’s shoulders. “Bill.” 

Bill grunts, his palm clasping with bruising force over Holden’s hip. He shifts closer, until his knees are framing Holden’s hips, and his cock is delving in at a steep angle that brings every thick inch closer and closer to Holden’s prostate.

Holden’s mouth stretches open as the dull pressure mounts against him, slowly pushing past the clamp of muscle to find its way inside. Gasping breaths pile against the back of his throat, but he can hardly expel them with the magnitude of sensation blazing across his senses. Bill’s hand strokes his cheek, grounding him. 

Holden’s eyelids flutter open as the thrusting motion ends with Bill’s hips seating firmly against him. 

“Fuck.” Bill groans from deep in his chest, pressing his forehead harder into Holden’s. “Fuck, you feel so good.” 

Holden pants in broken gasps, searching for a proper reply from somewhere within his reeling body, but he can’t think past the consuming sensation of Bill’s cock filling to the brink. 

Bill’s hips move again, and Holden cries out. The pressure releases for mere seconds before Bill thrusts against him again, bringing their bodies together with a muted slap. 

“Oh God.” Holden groans, his nails digging into Bill’s shoulders. 

Clutching his cheek, Bill pushes Holden’s head back against the pillow to watch his face as he begins to slowly grind against him. The thrusts are deep and steady, rocking up against Holden’s prostate at just the right tempo to bring the blazing arousal back to the forefront. 

Holden locks his ankles against Bill’s back, and pushes into the sensation, gasping in satisfaction with every thrill of Bill’s cockhead against the swollen, aching spot deep inside him. Already so unraveled from Bill’s mouth, he feels the pleasure rise quick and fierce in his belly, expanding like a tidal wave crushing at his ribs and down towards his cock. His moans taper off into stretches of breathless silence, everything holding taut as he feels the pleasure creeping up through his belly. Bill’s thrusting is shallow and consistent, maintaining the perfect angle to rub the arousal into full-blown pleasure. Holden curls trembling fingers around his cock to encourage the throbbing pleasure boiling up in his blood, and the compounding sensations tip him over the edge, into gripping, quaking orgasm. 

Holden stutters a gasp as the tension elongates and then snaps with a great, deep spasm from deep inside him. His back arches sharply as it races through him quick and biting across frayed nerve-endings, spilling the pleasure through him like hot lava swamping every inch, blanketing his senses in an array of sparks behind his eyelids. 

As the pleasure fades, Holden becomes acutely aware of the slick, wet dribble of cum across his belly and ribs, and the thick friction of Bill’s cock thrusting into him. His eyelids slide open, hazily perusing the gasping stretch of Bill’s belly, the width of his chest gleaming with sweat and rising with savage, hungry breaths, the panting bow of lips, at last the gleaming blue of his eyes alive with pleasure. 

Throwing his arms around Bill’s neck, Holden drags him down into a kiss. Bill’s raspy breaths smother him in between messy strokes of lips and tongue, muffling Holden’s eager, satisfied whimpers. His sensitized body jolts with every rut of Bill’s hips against him, but he welcomes the overload of sensation washing across his senses like a full-bodied baptism of bliss. 

Bill’s kisses fracture off into ruined moans as his hips stagger through the few, final thrusts before his own pleasure comes crashing down against his chest. His arms tighten around Holden, all but driving the air from his lungs, while his body shudders in throes of orgasm. 

Holden can feel the rush of wet heat inside him, filling him. He moans against Bill’s ear, muttering affirmations with every gush that paints his insides. 

Grunting softly, Bill eases to a stop against him. His forehead sinks down against Holden’s shoulder as he rests there quietly, panting. 

Holden strokes his nape as his own breathing evens out. His eyelids crack open to glimpse the furnishings of the apartment, deepened in the long shadows spilling from the kitchen light. He can see their reflection in the black glass of the television screen, the two of them huddled together as if it’s their last night on earth. 

A few minutes pass before Bill’s breathing quiets, and he slowly lifts his head from Holden’s shoulder. His brow furrows as he strokes a thumb across Holden’s cheek. He swallows hard, searching for something to say. 

Holden gazes mutely back at him. Somewhere in the echoing hollow of his brain, there’s a whisper of honesty nudging against his shoulders. He wants to say it. He wants to say everything he’s been feeling for the past four years, but the moment feels too new, too infantile like a young fawn just learning to stand. Perhaps if he said something now, all of it would shatter and collapse. 

Bill sighs, quietly, lowering his head. His fingers are clutched at Holden’s cheek, thumb pinching the skin against his forefinger with every stroke. 

Holden shudders.  _ Does he think he’s made a mistake?  _

But, Bill gathers himself up from the couch, and tugs Holden along with him. He leads them to the bedroom, leaving their clothes discarded on the living room floor. 

~

Bill jolts awake from a deep, dark sleep, unsure of what had woken him. He blinks disorientedly against the sunlight spilling past his curtains for several, fuzzy moments before yesterday’s memories begin to filter past the haze of dreams, solidifying into solid, colorful details. 

He rolls over abruptly, taking in the empty half of the bed beside him with sudden, lurching nausea. The pillow Holden had slept on still has the indentation of his head, but Bill is alone in the bedroom, listening to his own heartbeat slog through a sick, staggering rhythm. 

Tossing back the sheets, Bill gets out of bed, and snags his robe on the way to the bedroom door. He doesn’t remember closing it last night, but he doesn’t remember a lot of the minute decisions, only intent and need. 

Clutching the robe closed at his waist, he wanders down the hallway with bated breath. The bathroom is empty, too. 

Bill feels his heart constricting violently in his chest as he crosses into the living room to see the lonely couch slouched in front of the coffee table and vacant television. Holden’s clothes are gone from the floor, leaving Bill’s trousers and underwear abandoned on the carpet. 

He stands there for at least a minute, fighting back the rising tide of anger and crushing disappointment before a gurgling sound interrupts the leaping track of his thoughts. 

Bill bolts away from his spot in the living room, and enters the kitchen to see the coffee pot sputtering in the process of brewing. The carafe is already holding at least a cup, and continues to fill. There’s two coffee mugs sitting side-by-side on the counter. 

Before Bill can make another move, the front door swings open. 

Holden slips into the apartment with a paper sack in his hand. Nudging the door shut, he kicks his shoes off by the door, and turns around to see Bill standing in the entryway of the kitchen, staring at him. 

“Oh, you’re up.” 

“Where were you?” Bill asks, trying not to sound panicked. 

“Breakfast.” Holden says, holding up the sack. “I remembered you liked that bagel place down the street.” 

“Oh.” Bill says, swallowing back the emotion rising in the back of his throat. 

“What?” Holden asks, the smile melting from his face. 

“I just, um … I woke up, and you weren’t here.” Bill says, averting his gaze as heat crawls steadily up his cheeks. 

“Oh.” Holden says, “God, Bill, I’m sorry. I thought I would be back before you got up.” 

“It’s okay. I’m fine. I shouldn’t have assumed that-”

“No, I’m sorry. I should have left a note or something.” Holden says, crossing the room to Bill. Setting aside the sack, he braces his hands against the edge of the countertop, and lowers his head. “After New York, I understand if you don’t-”

“Holden.” 

Holden’s mouth compresses into a quivering line as he slowly lifts misty eyes to Bill’s. 

Bill gently grasps his wrist, and tugs Holden to him until he can wrap an arm around his waist. 

“I need you to stop beating yourself up about that. It was as much my fault as it was yours.” He says. 

Holden nods, swallowing thickly. 

“It’s in the past now. We can’t change it. I’m just glad you’re here.” Bill says. He leans in to impart a chaste kiss against the corner of Holden’s mouth. 

Holden mutters a sound of agreement. “Me too.” 

The coffee pot gives one last gurgle before the kitchen falls silent. 

Bill draws in a steadying breath. “You want breakfast?” 

“Yeah.” 

Bill releases him, and Holden goes to the coffee pot to fill the mugs. Bill takes the bagels to the kitchen table while he stirs in sugar and milk. Sinking to the chair, Bill watches the back of his head. He wants to enjoy the quiet intimacy of this moment, bathed in morning sunshine and humming with possibility, but the wounded part of him still wonders how long it’s going to last. 

Holden carefully carries the two steaming mugs of coffee to the table, and sits down across from Bill. 

“Thanks.” Bill mutters. He takes a sip of coffee, watching Holden over the rim of the cup. 

Holden picks at his bagel.  _ Having second thoughts?  _

Bill bites the inside of his cheek. “What is it?”

Holden’s gaze wanders up from the cream cheese melting across his bagel. He draws in a slow breath. “I cancelled my flight.” 

Bill’s mind his quick to race with excitement, but he tamps it down with a dose of reality. 

“Are you going to reschedule it?” He asks, procuring an even tone. 

“Well … I don’t have school right now.” Holden says, “I thought maybe … maybe I could postpone it for a few days, or weeks, or …” 

“Postpone?” 

“Yes. I could stay here if you … I mean, if you wouldn’t mind. I don’t want to presume that-”

“Of course you could stay here.” Bill says, leaning forward to brace his elbows on the table. “That’s not the issue. Are you sure about this?” 

“Yes.” Holden says, despite the quiver in his voice. 

Bill nods, mulling it over. He clears his throat. “Holden, last night was, um … incredible, but-”

“But what?” 

“We should take this slow.” 

“No, I agree.” Holden says, “Absolutely. It would just be for a week or two. I can’t quit my job in Boston. I love it there, but … I love you too, and I can’t-

“Hold on a second.” Bill says. 

“What?” 

“You can’t just say that, and keep talking.” 

Holden’s mouth purses over a smile. “You want me to say it again?” 

“Yeah. Slower this time.” 

Holden blushes dusty pink as Bill reaches across the table to snag his fingers. 

“Okay.” He murmurs, his fingers curling against Bill’s. His gaze dips away anxiously a few times before committing to Bill’s. “I love you.” 

Bill nods, absorbing the sound of those three words coming from Holden’s mouth. He’d spent so much of the last four years wrestling with the realization in his own mind, wondering if Holden had ever felt it with the same intensity, hating himself for still wanting it even after Holden was gone. It seems sweeter now, like a beer after a long, hard day, well-earned with blood, sweat, and tears. 

“I love you, too.” He says, quietly, hearing himself saying it - really saying it - for the first time. He’d said it angrily in that hotel in New York, and it had felt like a shard of glass piercing his heart; but this moment feels gentler, more fragile, and he can hardly breathe with it seizing his chest. 

Holden’s mouth squirms against a smile. He squeezes his fingers tighter around Bill’s. 

“I know this is new.” He says, “But I think we should give it the next couple of weeks, see how we feel … After that, we can figure it out.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, if we really want to, I think we can.” 

“You know I can’t quit my job either.” Bill says. “Brian is here in Virginia.” 

“I know.” Holden says, “I wouldn’t expect you to uproot your life for me.” 

“I think Ted would give you your job back in a heartbeat.” Bill says, posing the suggestion carefully even as his gaze angles anxiously away from Holden’s. 

“Probably.” Holden murmurs. “I’m not sure I can do that, Bill.” 

Bill nods. “No, I know. It’s just a nice thought … having you back.” 

Holden sighs, lowering his head. “Can we just not think about the logistics of it for right now?” 

“We’ll have to think about it eventually.” 

“I know. But I just want a few more days like yesterday. For right now, I just want this …” Holden whispers, his gaze reaching up to gently grip Bill’s. “You and me, together like this.” 

Leaving his bagel untouched, Bill gets up from the table to circle around to Holden’s side. Holden rises to meet him, clutching at his chest as Bill grasps his waist. Bill leans in, his nose brushing Holden’s. 

“I think I can manage that.” He whispers, “What do you want to do today?” 

“Nothing.” Holden murmurs, pushing his mouth up against Bill’s. “Nothing at all.” 

Bill kisses him, slowly and thoroughly, lips stroking over Holden’s until Holden opens his mouth to it, and it dissolves into a deep, hungry meld of tongue and teeth. 

Holden clutches at his chest, uttering a quiet whimper beneath the steady press of Bill’s mouth. His body arches in Bill’s grip, pushing his backside into the downward clutch of Bill’s hands. 

Bill clutches Holden’s ass, pulling him closer until he can feel the pulse of Holden’s groin rising against his own. 

Bill’s kiss relents, and Holden gasps softly against his mouth. “God, I missed you. I really missed you.” 

Bill dips his mouth to nuzzle against Holden’s throat, breathing in the scent of him until washes his senses with the idea of relief. “So did I.” 

Holden wraps his arms around Bill’s neck, and tilts his head back to the warm press of Bill’s mouth traveling lower.

As he begins to tremble, Bill lifts his head to glimpse Holden’s eyes half-shut and glassy with desire. 

“Come on.” He murmurs, nodding toward the bedroom. 

Holden follows him without protest, his fingers wrapped tightly around Bill’s. 

Golden morning sunlight slants past the blinds, falling backwards across their forgotten breakfast. The curling tendrils of steam winding from the coffee mugs searches up like smoke signals through the air until it goes cold, and the kitchen is still and silent, drowned in light. 

~the end~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone enjoyed this last chapter! 
> 
> Check out the sappy playlist I made for this fic on Spotify [here](https://https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5YTODX1AgSsO74JBjUtQeA//)
> 
> This story now has a sequel, "every time we kissed (there was another apple to slice into pieces)," that you can read [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23904109//):)
> 
> I'm [prinxcesskayy](https://prinxcesskayy.tumblr.com//) on Tumblr!


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